A former FIFA World Cup final match referee, Arnaldo Coelho, says fair play as a tie-breaker at the tournament is not good.

The Brazilian thinks a corner kick count will be a better way of separating teams who finish level on points and goals.

Senegal became the first team in World Cup history to be eliminated on yellow cards after finishing level on points, goal difference and goals scored.

The African side picked up six yellow cards in their three games to Japan’s four, and they were eliminated at the end of Group H action on Thursday.

They had four points from a win, a draw and loss, just like Japan, at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Senegal had also scored four goals and conceded four, while both sides had drawn 2-2 during their meeting.

FIFA has however said it has no plans to change the rules.

Coelho, who also criticised the use of video assistant referees (VAR) in incidents such as handball, said tie-breakers should be decided by objective criteria.

“The problem is that a yellow card is subjective… and some referees tend to be stricter and give more yellow cards than others,” he said. “So, if a team plays in a match with a stricter referee, they will be at a disadvantage.

“For me there is another way… counting corner kicks. It’s a technical criteria and to win corner kicks you have to attack, you have to play football.”

Japan’s final match, a 1-0 defeat by Poland, ended in farce as they effectively stopped playing, thereby avoiding picking up bookings or red cards that would have jeopardised their second-place finish.

“They wouldn’t have done that if corner kicks had been used,” said Coelho, who ran commentaries for a Brazilian television station during the ongoing 2018 World Cup.

He said there was nothing match officials could do in such circumstances and added that he was speaking from experience.

The Brazilian was a linesman during the so-called “non-aggression” match between West Germany and Austria in 1982.

“I felt powerless,” he said, recalling Germany’s 1-0 win that sent the both teams through at the expense of Algeria after a soulless kick about.

Coelho, the first non-European to referee a World Cup final when he officiated at the Italy-West Germany match in 1982, said that VAR was a good idea in principle.

He however contended that its use should be restricted to objective decisions such as offside.

“In these cases, VAR is important to resolve problems, to help save the referee… it’s a parachute,” the former referee said.

“On the other hand, to resolve any incident which is a matter of interpretation, it’s very risky.

“This is because the referee on the field sees the normal movement of the game and can interpret things at five metres distance by the movement of the players.

“The video referee, meanwhile, makes calls based on slow motion which distorts the incident because it does not always the reflect the intensity of the movement.”

Coelho said that similar handball incidents were still producing different decisions, even with the help of VAR.

“People interpret decisions differently, that is why there are controversies in football,” he said.

“There isn’t a common criteria among the VARs. We saw similar incidents such as handballs where one gave a penalty kick, and the other didn’t… So, we have the same problem which existed before.” (Reuters/NAN)

– Jun. 30, 2018 @ 14:25 GMT |