FIFA’s Flawed Rulebook

As we approach the semifinal round of the World Cup, the table is set with the four strongest nations—Argentina, England, France, and Spain —still in the hunt. But the mood around the World Cup is one of frustration and sadness because of the rules under which the key matches have been conducted. Argentina seems blessed with a charmed life. Its greatest player, Lionel Messi, escaped a red card early in the competition for an offensive foul that looked very similar to, if not worse than, the red card that was issued to the American striker, Folarin Balogun. That red card would have kept Balogun out of the Round of 16 game against Belgium, at least before the governing body of FIFA, led by its president Gianni Infantino, “suspended” that punishment for a year, when it did not matter one whit just after he received a phone call from President Donald Trump asking him to look into the matter. As Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay wryly wrote before the reversal, America needed to rely on a crack legal team to reverse that outcome.   

Of far greater practical consequence were two highly disputed calls that could have likely altered the outcome of two key games, both involving Argentina. By the first, the so-called video assistant referee called back a glorious Egyptian goal for what was at most a minor infraction some 17 seconds earlier—which paved the way for Argentina to work a wondrous comeback in the final 12 minutes of the game plus stoppage time. And then in the game between Argentina and Switzerland, the Swiss were pummeling Argentina in the second half of their contest, when Breel Embolo was expelled from the game for a second yellow card for “flopping” in a situation where there was no contact between the players, which allowed Argentina to overcome the stout 10-man Swiss defense after forty minutes of trying. As with Egypt, the Swiss did not go quietly as their coach Murat Yakin denounced FIFA for its decision that might well have prevented the upset of the century. 

The bitter taste in the mouths of the losing teams should not be dismissed as sour grapes, but should trigger a wholesale reexamination of the rules that govern soccer, which are, and for a long time, as I have long argued, disfigured a great game. Instead, the rot starts with the rules. For starters, FIFA rule 27, whose text allowed FIFA to suspend the enforcement of the penalty not only against Balogun but also a similar suspension in a preliminary round that was given to the one-time Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. Trump, tactless as ever, then thanked Infantino for his service, while Belgium and the rest of the soccer world criticized the decision, impairing the goodwill that the United States had previously earned in staging and playing in the tournament. In both cases, the word “suspension” is a bad joke, for some random sanction next year does not have one-millionth the pop of its immediate enforcement. Just as one does not change horses in mid-stream, FIFA should not have caved to Trump—period. 

Yet the major long-term lesson to learn from this tragedy does not point its finger at Trump or even the VAR, whose questionable decisions upended two key contests. It instead targets the utterly inexcusable FIFA rules that I have long opposed for the perverse incentives they create at every stage of the process. Thus, with Embolo, it is easy for players to slip in the anticipation of contact, but, alas, no future review could help—the rules have to be altered so that taking away a yellow card from one player need not require that it be awarded to the other. Just nullify the wrong call. 

The situation with Balogun is trickier because its consequences carry over in principle to the second game. The most modest reform reengineers the sloppy appeals process of Rule 27. There is nothing that can be done during the game to correct red-card errors, however, given that there is always a multi-day break before the next game is played, an organized review could easily determine if that added punishment was justified.  

For instance, Balogun's suspension was suspect from the start. There are red cards and red cards, and this one looked sketchy from the outset. There was no intent to injure, and the first response from the referee was to let play continue on the grounds that the collision between the two players was a common occurrence, as they always get tangled up in going for a ball. Worse still, Rule 27 contains no hint as to what circumstances justify suspending the penalty. In this instance, the intent element, which is subordinate in the initial review, should play a much larger role, and the neutral review would have lifted the second stage of punishment, allowing Balogun to play without controversy.  

That reform still leaves open the prospect that, with some flagrant foul, the next-game suspension could be imposed. The more fundamental opposition to the current rules is that they violate a fundamental principle of justice, as in Balogun’s case, by refusing to keep the pluses and minuses of each game self-contained, which could matter any time a red or yellow card is given. In its game against Mexico, it was wrongly reported that the great English striker Harry Kane had received a yellow card. But suppose he had. What difference should that have made in the then-upcoming quarterfinal against Norway—a thriller that England won. A yellow card for Kane would still allow him to play. Under the yellow card accumulation rule, however, the first yellow card against Kane would have combined with his earlier yellow card to make one red card that would lead to his removal.  

Stupid. The yellow card carryover would have put England in an inferior position. To leave Kane on the bench would be next to madness. But to put him in means that he would have had to have played with extra caution not required of Haaland, distorting the game dynamics. And there is no reason why Norway here or Belgium earlier should be the beneficiary of a foul committed against a third party in an previous game. 

The same issue of flagrant fouls also arises in American basketball, where the rules are quite different from those under FIFA. The basic system has both flagrant 1 and flagrant 2 fouls. But there the similarity stops. The line between them is, of course, muddy. Flagrant 1involves “unnecessary contact.” Flagrant 2 involves “unnecessary and excessive contact.” The penalty structure in both scenarios involves two free throws, followed by retention of possession. In flagrant 2, the price is automatic ejection, but the rule also allows a substitute to enter the game immediately(four-on -five is madness in basketball), but in the NBA, nothing carries over to the next game. If heavier punishment is needed, fines are available.  

The basic structure in the National Hockey League also avoids carrying the sins of one game over to the next. The initial cut likewise divides fouls into two classes—minor and major. The former requires the offending player to sit in a penalty box for up to two minutes, during which the other team has a man advantage that ends only if that team scores a goal. The major penalty uses the same structure for a five minute period, with the same termination. Neither penalty carries expulsion. That structure keeps the offense within the game, and its man-advantage rule creates dynamic openings, which become ever more complex if two or more players are sitting in the penalty box simultaneously. Soccer is ideally made for such a rule, while avoiding the problem with the yellow card, which is that it does not lead to sufficient short-term advantages—free kicks only matter when the ball is in the offensive half—and they, of course, would be retained if a new penalty structure is introduced.  

There is also a second major reform that should be introduced. In basketball, a foul shot is worth only one point, while field goals are either two or three points, depending on whether the shot is taken outside the arc. That last reform may well not fit in soccer, given the high number of deflections, but it is imperative that scoring rules change so that a penalty shot is worth only one point and a goal from the field is worth two. The penalty calls inside the box are very hard to make, and the chance of their success is, say, in the order of 70 percent. The likelihood that any foul in the field disrupts a 70 chance of scoring is highly unlikely, so the penalty goal should count for less, just like the free throw in basketball. Thus, if, in a close game, one team scores from the field and the other from the penalty spot, there is an evident lack of parity in treating the two goals as equally valuable. Hence the 2-to-1 score is appropriate. In addition, the soccer rule that allows the shooting team to pick its best shooter is also unwise, in contrast to the basketball rule that requires the party that is fouled to also help reduce the prospects of getting a penalty goal. Reducing the value of the penalty shot will also improve the balance of the game. And the reduced likelihood of a tie calling for penalty shots should, in turn, reduce the likelihood of the game being decided by penalty kicks.  

Indeed, a better way to handle the extra overtime is to avoid those kicks altogether by allowing additional substitute players and by following a rule that every 10 minutes for the first overtime period requires each team to remove one player from the field. Fewer players translate into more goals and an increase in the number of tactical choices. In addition, there is the possibility of letting a player who has been called off the field in regulation time return to the game once the overtime period begins Having rested, able players reduces the ticklish situation where fresh players are up against tired legs.  

FIFA is hidebound in the face of manifest difficulties with its current regime. It needs a dose of fresh air once this World Cup is over. Whether all these reforms should be accepted in this form is obviously a subject for further debate and experimentation before they are made mandatory at the professional level. But whatever the ultimate choice, the current system of yellow and red cards should be consigned to the dustbin of history, joined there by the rule that penalty kicks are on a par with regular goals. Getting this done before 2030 should be at the top of the agenda. 

 Richard A. Epstein is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute. He is also the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law.