In recent years, the flagrant fouls in athletic sports field are becoming more and more serious. From 2010 to 2019, Chinese Basketball Association and Chinese Football Association issued 133“Punishment Decision Letter for Violation of Rules and Discipline”, some of the acts of flagrant fouls taken out of the athletic sports field completely conform to the constitutive requirements of the intentional injury crime, but the person does not bear the criminal responsibility, which violates the principle of equality before the criminal law, produce false reality effect, hinder the healthy development of sports in our country. The absence of criminal law results from the error application of criminal law theory and the excessive autonomy of sports industry. The essence of flagrant foul is intentional injury, but the determination of flagrant foul should be combined with the context of specific athletic sports. Based on the modesty and restraint of the criminal law and the particularity of athletic sports, the intervention of the criminal law should be aimed at promoting the development of sports. Only when the corresponding preconditions, time conditions, subject conditions, limit conditions and subjective conditions are met can the competitive sports injury behavior could be justified. Under the background that the Civil Code establishes the principle of “self-contained risk” and promotes the active participation of all people in sports activities, the basic way to punish flagrant foul is to establish a long-term mechanism of prevention in advance, coordination in-process and punishment ex post.