9 Dirtiest Footballers in the World Right Now (2024)

Key Takeaways

• Despite generally having moved away from the total physical style of football from the past, the game still has more than enough "dirty players."

• Luis Suarez is one of the game's best ever strikers, but also one of the dirtiest active football players in the world.

• One entrant on this list shares the record for most yellow cards received by a single player in a Premier League season.

Football has seen its fair share of dirty players throughout its history. At times, the game has been synonymous with tough tackles and a general roughness. While this perception has mellowed somewhat, particularly in the 21st century, that is not to say that football has a lack of players that enjoy the mayhem. With that, who are the dirtiest players in the world, still playing football today?

Ranking Factors

This list focuses predominantly on cards, yellow and red, as a basis for determining which entrants made the list. "Dirty" is a subjective word in football. Players can be regarded as such for reasons other than discipline, which has been factored into the ranking, but discipline is what this list has been weighted towards more so than anything else.

9 Joao Palhinha

Perhaps no modern midfielder better embodies the fondly-remembered physicality of the past than Joao Palhinha. The Portuguese international, who now plays for German giants Bayern Munich, spent two years with Fulham prior to the move, where he truly established himself on the world stage.

While a capable technical player, he is known for his tough tackling style of play. In the 2022-23 season, Palhinha equaled the record for the most yellow cards garnered by one player in a campaign with 14, going on to notch a further 13 yellow cards the following year. At the time of writing, the Portuguese has committed 398 fouls, a number that will surely rise in the coming years.

8 Sergio Busquets

Sergio Busquets is perhaps one of the most underrated midfielders of his generation. Spending well over a decade in the ranks at Barcelona, Busquets had a silky control of the ball, something that he made look ridiculously easy. His quality was almost to his detriment, in that he made the game appear so simple, some took it to mean that he could do very little with the ball, when in fact it was the direct opposite.

His ability did not take away from his knack for fouling, however. He was still a defensive midfielder, a position that often concedes fouls, which Busquets has done 608 times across his career. On top of that, the 36-year-old former Spanish international, who now plays for Inter Miami in America, has been shown three straight red cards and 139 yellows.

7 Ashley Young

In a career that has been going strong for 21 years, with no recent signs of slowing down, Ashley Young is a true veteran of the game. Other than a season-long stint with Inter Milan, Young has spent the entirety of his career in his native England. He started as a winger, pacey and full of flair, before settling into a full-back role in his later years which he currently plays for Everton.

The number of cautions that Young has received has no doubt been amplified since moving into a defensive role, but his tally of 579 fouls is quite staggering, as is the fact he has accumulated 99 yellow cards across his career thus far, averaging out at just under five yellow cards per season. Amidst all of this, Young has also been given his marching orders multiple times, being the recipient of five straight red cards.

6 Djene

Djene has spent the entirety of his career in Spain with the exception of one campaign in Belgium. He joined Getafe in 2017 and has made well over 200 appearances for the club in the previous seven years. The defender has made a reputation for himself as a solid defender, though not one that is entirely exempt from committing fouls.

Djene has racked up 103 yellow cards in his 15-year career, 14 of those coming in the 2023-24 campaign. Not only that, but the defender has been sent off 12 separate times in his time as a player, showcasing that while he is a more than capable player, he is not without some slight disciplinary issues.

5 Cristian Romero

Across the last season or two, Romero seems to have slightly mellowed from the player that he was when he first arrived at Tottenham Hotspur. He has always been a quality centre-back, but in his time with the North London club, he has showcased a rash side to his style of play.

In Tottenham's infamous 4-1 loss to Chelsea, remembered particularly for manager Ange Postecoglou's commitment to maintaining their high line defensive system in spite of being down to nine men, Romero was one of the two Spurs players dismissed for a dangerous tackle, just one of numerous examples provided by the Argentinian.

He has committed just shy of 300 fouls in his career, 292 to be exact, with 69 of those fouls resulting in a yellow card being shown. He has also been sent straight off on five different occasions.

4 Arturo Vidal

Arturo Vidal has enjoyed more than his fair share of success across his career, which he is currently continuing with Colo-Colo, the team he made his senior debut for. The Chilean international spent 15 years in Europe, turning out for Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich in Germany, Juventus and Inter Milan in Italy and Barcelona in Spain. Between 2011 and 2021, Vidal won nine league titles and was a contributing player in each triumph.

With his success, however, has come a reputation. Vidal has always been a feisty player in midfield, a tenacious ball winner with a penchant for the art of tackling. It is not something he has always perfected, evidently, as the Chilean has committed 847 fouls across his career. Remarkably, despite such a high number of cautions, Vidal has only been given marching orders five times.

3 Diego Costa

Diego Costa will go down as one of the most irritating players in Premier League history. The former Atletico Madrid striker was a master of the dark arts, routinely winding up whoever had the misfortune of marking him during his stint with Chelsea, a practice that made him appeal to fans of the team he played for just as efficiently as it made supporters of teams that faced him despise him.

It was perhaps with the Blues that Costa's nasty streak became best known to the world, but that is not to say that Costa played dirty solely at Stamford Bridge. Still an active player, now plying his trade for Gremio in his native Brazil, Costa has accumulated 509 fouls in an 18-year career, having been shown a whopping 124 yellow cards throughout this time.

2 Sergio Ramos

The most booked player in the history of football, Sergio Ramos will be remembered as much for his fouling as he will be for his quality. A truly remarkable defender that spent over a decade on the books at Real Madrid, having started his career with local club Sevilla, Ramos established himself as one of the world's best defenders with performances that were as consistent as they were brilliant, with a keen eye for goal in spite of his position.

Alongside that, however, came Ramos' discipline, or lack thereof. The centre-back, who is a free agent at the time of writing, has racked up an eye-watering 1,020 fouls throughout a career spanning two decades. The 244 cautions that he has received are the most to ever be given out to one player. On top of that, Ramos has been dismissed 29 separate times, a record that nobody has surpassed as of yet.

1 Luis Suarez

He's one of the best strikers to ever play the game, but the quality of Luis Suarez can not detract from the fact that he is also one of the dirtiest ever players in football's history. Suarez, who now plays alongside Lionel Messi for Inter Miami in the MLS, has racked up 578 fouls across his professional career, having turned out for Ajax, Liverpool, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid before leaving Europe.

It is not his cards for which Suarez is regarded as a dirty player, though. In 2010, he infamously produced a magical save for Uruguay in the World Cup, tipping Asamoah Gyan's shot over the crossbar. This proved problematic, given Suarez was the striker and not the goalkeeper. The attacker was shown a straight red before being seen celebrating Gyan's penalty hitting the woodwork and going over.

Even worse, though are the biting incidents. One would have been bad enough, which came during his time at Ajax. In a 2010 game against PSV Eindhoven, Suarez was judged to have bitten opposing player Otman Bakkal and was initially banned for two games, though this suspension was soon upped to seven matches.

Three years later, Suarez was a Liverpool player and started a game for the Reds against Chelsea, in which he committed his second biting offence, this time against Branislav Ivanovic. In the match, his action was unseen and went unpunished, with Suarez going on to equalise for Liverpool in injury time. He was slapped with a 10-game suspension which carried over into his first few weeks with Barcelona upon moving there.

Just over a year later, during the 2014 edition of the World Cup, Suarez was once more punished for biting an opponent, his third such offence. This time, the unfortunate target was Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini, on whom bite marks were soon apparent. Suarez was swiftly given a nine-match international ban, ending any further involvement in that particular competition.