How was Colombia’s Wilmar Barrios only issued a yellow card for headbutting Jordan Henderson?

England and Colombia are in the middle of their cagey Round of 16 matchup, which is tied 0-0 at halftime. The biggest talking point of the first half came with just a few minutes remaining and England lining up a free kick on the edge of Colombia’s box.

It was there that Colombia’s Wilmar Barrios, competing for position in the wall with England’s Jordan Henderson, put his head underneath Henderson’s chin and then appeared to lift up violently, headbutting the England midfielder.

Here’s the video of the incident:

Barrios was issued a yellow card for the infraction by American referee Mark Geiger, which if you know soccer ... doesn’t make any sense.

A headbutt is an ejectable foul. If you have any doubt about this, ask Zinedine Zidane. It is a no-questions-asked red card. If you headbutt an opponent, that’s it.

So to issue Barrios a yellow card is perplexing. It’s either a red or Geiger needed to determine nothing happened and it shouldn’t be called anything. Splitting the difference is nonsense.

Even more perplexing was that Geiger didn’t see it happen. He was talking to other players. Henderson fell to the ground, England players started screaming at him ... and he didn’t do much of anything for a minute.

In the instance that the referee didn’t see something but believes something occurred, you’d assume Geiger would go to video replay (VAR) to understand what happened. There he could see it, and make a decision.

...He didn’t do that either. He never watched the replay. It seems that he may have gotten information from a video replay official talking to him in his earpiece, but that doesn’t explain how that foul could be determined to be a yellow card.

Colombia and Barrios will be delighted it did, but that doesn’t make it any more understandable.