A youth football match in Brazil has smashed the Guinness World Record for the most red cards in a single game, after a mass brawl saw more than 50 people sent off, TNT Sports reported on November 5.
The match was a Minas Gerais Under-20 Championship second division semi-final first leg between Mamore and Uberlandia, played at the Parque do Sabia in Uberlandia on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
A brawl that lasted 40 minutes
A massive brawl broke out in the second half, with the violence lasting nearly 40 minutes, according to Brazilian media reports. The referee, Fernando Patrick Drosghic Modesto, then began dismissing players in extraordinary numbers.
Reports differ slightly on the final count: TNT Sports reports 53 people sent off in total, including 40 players, eight members of coaching staff and two board members, while Khelnow and OneFootball report 51 sendings off, including 43 players and eight coaching staff. Either figure comfortably breaks the old record.
A 15-year-old record falls
The previous Guinness World Record mark had stood for more than 15 years at 36 red cards, set in February 2011 during an Argentine Primera D fixture between Club Atletico Claypole and Victoriano Arenas.
It remains to be seen when — and indeed if — the new record will ever be broken, given the unprecedented scale of the incident. The return leg of the semi-final will now be played under intense scrutiny from the Minas Gerais federation.
The match itself was a semi-final first leg, so the two sides must meet again with the tie still to be decided — and with dozens of players now suspended, both squads will be scrambling to field a team. The federation has not yet said whether further sanctions will follow the brawl, which reportedly lasted almost 40 minutes before order was restored. Whatever happens next, the record is unlikely to be challenged soon: more than 50 dismissals in one game is a figure that belongs in the record books for a long time.
