Football fans divided over violent tackle which saw player's hair pulled

People are flooding to social media in debate over a tackle made in the European Football League.

On 17 September, American football teams the Frankfurt Galaxy and the Rhein Fire from Germany went head-to-head in a semifinal match taking place in Duisburg.

Or we should really say head-to-hand, with one player from Frankfurt Galaxy's team grabbing hold of a Rhein Fire team member's hair in the third quarter of the match.

Is this a legal tackle? 😮 pic.twitter.com/BNexXQdG5x

— DJ Kam Bennett (@KameronBennett) September 19, 2023

DJ Kam Bennett took to X - formerly known as Twitter - to share a clip of the game.

The video shows Frankfurt linebacker Wael Nasri make a tackle by grabbing the hair of his opponent.

It takes seconds for a fight to then break out between the two teams, everyone jumping in for a piece of the action before the referee steps in to break up the chaos.

Some X users have argued the hair-pulling was a 'legal move'.

One said: "Yup, hair becomes part of the uniform."

"100 percent legal," another added.

A third weighed in: "Legal but morally wrong."

And a final resolved: "Sadly yes this has always been legal."

However, other social media users are resolute the move shouldn't have been allowed.

"Yea but it should be a horse collar by definition of the uniform tackle," a user wrote.

Noting they aren't trying to debate an existing rule 'at all', they added: "It was legal, just interesting the pulling and yanking a player back isn’t [banned] due to the potential injury when the motion is similar to a horse collar (which was not always illegal) if we talking player safety you shouldn’t be allowed to pull player and sling them back…"

And another argued: "Contortions of the neck caused by pulling like that can cause serious neck injuries. Coupled with a tackle from a compromised position and it’s worse. If the point is to limit injury, why would the same considerations not apply? Should we wait to see someone break their neck?"

And according to official NFL rules, you are allowed to tackle another player by their hair

In 2016, NFL Vice President of Officiating Dean Blandino, said: "Grabbing the hair and pulling the runner toward the ground is legal."