Pierluigi Collina said that it was unfair that a team should play with one man less because of a heavy challenge from the opposition.
The Italian suggested that a player who is booked for a challenge which leaves an opponent needing treatment should wait on the touchline until his victim is ready to go back on.
"Football gives an advantage to the player who committed the foul," Collina told reporters. "It gives an advantage to those who should not be given an advantage.
"Maybe in the future we could tell the player (who committed the foul) to leave the field as well, and (they both) enter the field together, when the other player is ready."
Any such suggestion would have to be proposed to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which is responsible for making changes to the laws of the game. It would also certainly have to be tested in amateur or youth football before a final decision is made.
TRIPLE PUNISHMENT
Collina also repeated UEFA's criticism of the so-called triple punishment and said a distinction should be made between "saving a goal" and "denying the opposition a clear scoring opportunity."
Under the present rules, a player who denies an opponent a clear scoring chance in the penalty area will concede a penalty, be sent off and suspended for the next match.
UEFA asked earlier this year for the rule to be changed, and for the red card to be replaced with a yellow, but IFAB referred the request to its two specialist panels for further discussion.
The issue has been repeatedly discussed over the last few years and IFAB says it has been unable to find a satisfactory alternative.
Collina said that the scoring opportunity was restored by the awarding of the penalty, so there was no need for the red card.
"To have the chance restored and the player sent off, it's too much," he said.
However, Collina said it was different when a player stopped the ball from going in, as Luis Suarez famously did by punching a goalbound shot off the line in Uruguay's World Cup quarter-final against Ghana in 2010.
"We are talking about an obvious scoring chance and not saving a goal. Suarez was saving a goal, so having a penalty kick (for Ghana) is not restoring the same situation. So when a goal is saved, this is another matter."
(Reporting By Brian Homewood, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
Share
