Removing the shirt after a goal produces a yellow card without exception. The rule allows no discretion for context, which is unusual and deliberate.
The law is written as an absolute
Most cautionable offences require a referee to judge severity, intent or effect. Shirt removal does not: the act itself is the offence.
The same applies to covering the head with the shirt, which is treated identically even though the shirt technically remains on the player.
Referees are given no room to consider whether the celebration was provocative, joyful or entirely private, which is what makes the card feel harsh.
Absolute rules exist to remove arguments
A discretionary version of this rule would require the referee to assess the meaning of a celebration in front of a hostile crowd within seconds.
Every such judgement invites protest from the scoring side, the conceding side and afterwards from broadcasters, all of it based on interpretation.
A bright line eliminates the argument entirely. Nobody debates whether the shirt came off, because everyone can see that it did.
The original concerns were practical
Time was one factor. Shirts are removed, thrown, waved and retrieved, and the restart is delayed while a player dresses himself again.
Undershirt messages were another, since a slogan hidden beneath the shirt is a broadcast statement that no official has seen in advance.
There was also a straightforward commercial dimension: the shirt carries sponsorship, and removing it removes that exposure at the most watched moment of a match.
Players still do it and accept the cost
The card is a known price, and for a decisive late goal many players consider it worth paying.
The genuine risk is a second caution, which converts a celebration into a dismissal and can leave a team defending a lead with ten players.
Captains and coaches remind players already booked before restarts for exactly this reason, and it still happens several times a season.
What the rule did not stop
Celebratory messages moved rather than disappeared, showing up on boots, gloves, wristbands and in gestures aimed at cameras.
The regulation succeeded at its narrow aim of keeping shirts on and restarts prompt, which is all it was ever designed to do.
It did not, and could not, stop players from turning a goal into a moment of communication, because that impulse is the reason celebrations exist.