Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron has been given a one-match suspension after he was the first player to be sent off at the World Cup for covering his mouth.<\/p>\n
FIFA confirmed on Tuesday that Almiron will miss Paraguay’s final group game against Australia on Thursday. World soccer’s governing body said the decision was not subject to appeal.<\/p>\n
Almiron made history when he was issued a red card for covering his mouth during a confrontation with Turkey’s Mert Mulder late in the first half of Paraguay’s 1-0 win last Friday.<\/p>\n
Under new rules, players are not allowed to cover their mouths to disguise what they are saying during confrontations, with infringements leading to an instant dismissal.<\/p>\n
FIFA president Gianni Infantino pushed for the legislation after a high-profile incident in a Champions League game between Real Madrid and Benfica last season.<\/p>\n
Benfica\u2019s Gianluca Prestianni tried to hide verbal insults toward Madrid\u2019s Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior.<\/p>\n
UEFA later issued Prestianni a six-game ban \u2014 three of which were deferred \u2014 for what it described as “discriminatory (i.e. homophobic) conduct.”<\/p>\n
Soccer\u2019s rulemaking panel, the International Football Association Board, agreed in April that players can be penalized with a red card if they cover their mouths when verbally confronting another player.<\/p>\n
The rule is not mandatory within The Laws of the Game but gives competition organizers like FIFA the option to use it.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Infantino said he supported the new rule.<\/p>\n
“This thing about covering the mouth is for us a very, very important rule,” he told SNTV. “It\u2019s about respect, it\u2019s about the example that we should give.<\/p>\n
“If you have nothing to hide, you don\u2019t cover your mouth when you speak to somebody. The rules have been made very clear to everyone, everyone knows them, so this is an important element.”<\/p>\n
Reporting by the Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron has been given a one-match suspension after he was the first player to be sent off at the World Cup for covering his mouth. FIFA confirmed on Tuesday that Almiron will miss Paraguay’s final group game against Australia on Thursday. World soccer’s governing body said the decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}