FIFA Announces Two Big Officiating Guidelines For World Cup

FIFA president Gianni Infantino pitched a rule change earlier this year following a Champions League incident.

Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of making racist remarks during a February game. Prestianni, who covered his mouth with his shirt during the altercation, denied the allegations of racism. The 20-year-old received a six-match ban after admitting to making homophobic comments.

Infantino responded to the encounter by campaigning to eject any player who covers their mouth during a confrontation.

"If a player covers his mouth and says something, and this has a racist consequence, then he has to be sent off, obviously," Infantino told Sky News on March 1. "There must be a presumption that he has said something he shouldn’t have said, otherwise he wouldn’t have had to cover his mouth."

English Football Association CEO and IFAB member Mark Bullingham also addressed the possibility of a rule change after the Prestianni incident.

"You can see when a player is talking to an opponent, there are very few circumstances where they should need when they're confronting them to cover their mouth," Bullingham said. "But we need to look at everything and make sure if we were to bring the rules change or penalty for that, that we're not going to create further problems. There's a process that we'll go through, but there is a desire to bring something relatively quickly."

Meanwhile, the World Cup will also seek to avoid a repeat of January's Africa Cup of Nations final. Senegal's players left the field after the hosting Morocco was awarded a penalty kick, causing a 17-minute delay. Senegal won the match but was later stripped of the title by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).