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The penalty system in FIFA can be somewhat confusing. We know what a foul looks like. But some fouls are deemed worse than others. Some can also result in just more than a penalty kick for the other team — some leave players with yellow and red cards.
And that’s where things can get a bit confusing. FIFA’s card penalty system can be a bit much for someone who might be new to the game and the way things work. If that’s you, here’s a quick explainer that breaks it down.
Let’s start with the basics. A yellow card is a card an official hands off to a player when they commit a foul of some sort.
The yellow card is basically a caution sign. Here’s a quick breakdown from Olympics.com:
The referee shows a yellow card to indicate a player or a team official has been officially cautioned. The referee notes the offender’s details, time, and the nature of the foul committed in a small notebook which is also called a booking.
Think of a yellow card as a warning. A player normally gets one when they delay the restart of the game or there’s some sort of unsportsmanlike foul committed.
That player is then warned with the card. And if they collect another card because of a similar action, they’ll be ejected from the game.
It doesn’t just stop there, though. Section 15, rule 2 of the FIFA 2022 World Cup rule book states that if a player gets two yellow cards in two different matches during World Cup play, that player will automatically be suspended from the next game.
To make a long story short, players definitely have to be careful when dealing with yellow cards. No, they aren’t the same as red cards — where a player is ejected from the game and cannot be replaced — and won’t automatically remove you from play. But if a player accrues too many they’ll be removed from the action.
Nobody wants to see that. So let’s just hope everyone plays a good, clean game that we can all enjoy.
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