No worries. I apologize for overcooking my arguments as well.
I didn’t say there was no context, though, just that the context is irrelevant if the kick (or rather - hitting Rice) is deemed to be deliberate. No one can certainly know about intentions, and yet they are in fact the basis of a referees judgement in many decisions, and should be. You provide the example yourself: The GK that kicks you doesn’t get sent of for kicking you, because it was clearly not his intention to kick you. If, however, you take the ball ahead of him, and he stops for half a second, and then kicks you, he is rightfully sent of by me, and the difference isn’t the kicking, the hitting, the pain, or your level of hazardousness when nicking the ball, but simply my evaluation about his intention when kicking. Lots of football rules demand the referee to make evaluations of intentions. Some of the most malfunctioning rules are those that try too hard to avoid it (see hand ball rules). IMO. And when I see Veltman in that repetition, rolling the ball (unintentionally) onto Rice, from behind, seeing the ball hit him as much as he hits it, and apparently increasing his speed just that second to be in full explosion when he hits, I don’t for a second consider that he doesnmt wanna hit Rice as hard as he can. I might be wrong, as all evaluations about deliberation can be, but I trust my evaluation enough to say (with the help of repeated views) I think it is deliberate and warrants a red card. This is my reading, but the main point is that I must judge deliberation either way.
On the other decision, I find it surprising that you say there is no threshold for interfering with starting play too much. Just in the same highlights, I saw three counts of holding the ball a few extra seconds, throwing the ball a few yards the wrong way and deliberately standing in the way of the ball for the free kick to be delayed. All of them deliberately sabotaging play, none of them ‘enough’ to trigger a talking to even, much less a yellow card. It is the same for holding. No ref ever whistles for more than a percentage of holdings - even when there is a supposed crack-down on it, and if one of them started out of nowwhere he would award fifteen penalties and four red cards in one half of football. Some would say that would put an end to holdings, but I say that ref would not ref in the PL again. The norm amd the majority is that neither delaying play nor holding is judged in a literal manner, and nobody wants it that way, including the ref’s. They take the most blatant ones, and players know and expect this, and it would be unfair to give two pens to Liverpool for slight tugs while giving United none after three shirts standing like sails in the box. It’s the same with delaying play. To claim otherwise is just not true.
The third point I’d venture is that you in my view use double standards when you claim Veltman verdict would be subjective because viewed by intentions, while Tice delayment is supposedly objective and you take it as a fact he deliberately kicked the ball to delay the free kick. You can’t know that was deliberate anymore than I can know (objectively) Veltman tried to kick the player, theoretically Rice could also twist his foot to protect himself from the ball or instinctively fearing a kick, or just as a reflex when the ball hits his foot from behind. And what is very clear, is that players only get yellow cards for delaying play when it’s viewed as deliberate, intentional. A player trying to reach the ball back to the opponent, but is accidentally tripped up by another player so he loses the ball over the sideline, is not carded for sabotage. It’s subjective evaluation on the part of the ref, and it’s supposed to be, so it makes little sense calling it objective and saying you can’t judge intentions. That’s what the ref do when he cards Rice, and it’s what you do when you call him cheeky or what was the word you used to describe him earlier?
We might well view the situations differently and judge the deliberations and degrees differently, which is fair enough. I stand by that it was a horrible total evaluation by the ref, not many other refs would have done the same, and it changed the game completely. We can all agree Rice and Veltman could have done better, but that doesn’t absolve the ref of his mistake, IMO.
Oh, and last point, saying that a second yellow should always be evaluated in just the same way as the first, is also neither praxis, nor aim of referees, not nor would many like it that way. Many times a ref will give a yellow for consecutive fouls of the same player by different opponent players. The fourth opponent taking Bruno deliberately will get the yellow so to speak for the team, to set and example. Likeways two palyers will get carded after a slight brawl regardless of wether they both were equally overstepping the line. But in both these cases, a ref will not do that if the slight perpetrator is on a yellow. Also, many times the ref will have to make a decision when he is only 55-45 sure what happened, that there was enough contact, that there was intent, that one started and not the other. If a player is on a yellow, a ref wants to be more certain before he awards a new yellow. If he is of a 60-40 mind, he still won’t give it. And rightfully so. Anyone who knows refereeing knows that you can’t always be sure what happened, there is an element of gamble to many decisions. Well, everyone a part from one fellow ref I once knew who always insisted he had never made a single debatable call in all his reffing life. Let’s just say he never refereed above fifth level football in our league, as far as I know anyway. It’s only right to be more scrutinous about your decisions when they have bigger consequences. That is not the same as shying away when you are certain what is the right call.