There's no problem to begin with, apart from supporters of nazi rules weighing their opinion against advocates of practical considerations. Since the issue is unprecedented, they can do whatever the hell they want to do and issue a statement that henceforth similar situations will be dealt with this way or that way. But since there didn't exist a clear procedure previously, and thus for the guilty person there was no way of realising the severity, only a reprimand will happen now.

I have a feeling this anime (manga) is making karuta look quite a bit more popular and extravagant than such an obsolete game can really be. So, they can't afford to create too much nasty internal conflicts out of the blue. Just by looking at this show it's evident getting anywhere in karuta requires lots of effort and practice not useful for anything much in RL, so with such a setting, they shouldn't try to make it look too strict and inflamed an environment to make sure people don't get scared or disgusted.