{"id":8705,"date":"2026-03-02T00:40:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/players-covering-mouths-during-confrontations-should-be-sent-off-infantino\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:10:04","slug":"players-covering-mouths-during-confrontations-should-be-sent-off-infantino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/players-covering-mouths-during-confrontations-should-be-sent-off-infantino\/","title":{"rendered":"Players covering mouths during confrontations should be sent off &#8211; Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/cglgnp4394wt\">Dale Johnson<\/a>Football issues correspondent<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published40 minutes ago<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">110 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Players who cover their mouths when speaking to opponents during confrontations should be sent off, says Gianni Infantino, the president of football&#x27;s world governing body.<\/p>\n<p>Infantino <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/footballers-who-cover-mouths-during-on-pitch-rows-should-be-sent-off-says-fifa-boss-13513895\">told Sky News, <!-- -->external<\/a> he thought referees should work from a presumption that players have said &quot;something they shouldn&#x27;t have&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He was speaking less than two weeks after Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni raised his shirt over his mouth while speaking to Real Madrid&#x27;s Vinicius Jr during a Champions League game.<\/p>\n<p>The Argentina international has been given a <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/cly2vj1d443o\">provisional one-match ban by Uefa<\/a> for alleged use of racist language, which he denies.<\/p>\n<p>The ban was imposed pending the result of a full investigation by an ethics and disciplinary inspector, and Prestianni could be punished further once the investigation is complete.<\/p>\n<p>Infantino said individual cases should be dealt with by the relevant bodies, but football more broadly must &quot;act and be decisive&quot; to bring in something which has &quot;a deterrent effect&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The issue was discussed at the International Football Association Board (Ifab) annual general meeting in Wales this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>It was agreed there would be consultation to develop measures to stop players hiding what they might be saying to an opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Infantino said: &quot;If a player covers his mouth and says something, and this has a racist consequence, then he has to be sent off, obviously.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There must be a presumption that he has said something he shouldn&#x27;t have said, otherwise he wouldn&#x27;t have had to cover his mouth.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If you do not have something to hide, you don&#x27;t hide your mouth when you say something. That&#x27;s it, as simple as that.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/c4g82mr3l3vo\">\n<p>Vinicius: Eight years at Real Madrid, 20 cases of alleged racist abuse<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published18 February<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/cvg8p0dyjrvo\">\n<p>&#x27;Anyone found guilty of racism should not be in the game&#x27;<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published19 February<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/cwyg5887vp3o\">\n<p>Courting controversy and befriending Trump &#8211; Fifa&#x27;s &#x27;unlikely saviour&#x27;<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published4 days ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ifab was unable to reach an agreement this weekend, but measures could be agreed at the Fifa Congress in Vancouver on 30 April. <\/p>\n<p>That would allow the law to be changed in time for the World Cup this summer.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We want to continue the discussion and potentially come up with measures before the World Cup,&quot; Fifa secretary general Mattias Grafstrom said on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We will have the Fifa Congress, and that will be an opportunity to have a discussion.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham said more discussion was needed to find the correct solution.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We need to consult the game more broadly and work out where we would avoid any unforeseen circumstances,&quot; said Bullingham, who is on the Ifab board.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;You can see when a player is talking to an opponent, there are very few circumstances where they should need to cover their mouth when they are confronting them.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We need to look at everything and make sure if we were going to bring in a rule change or a penalty that we&#x27;re not going to create further problems.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\">Football<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/ce8e6y90g2jo\">\n<p>Follow your club with BBC Sport<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published17 October 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sounds\/series\/p02nrsln\">\n<p>Listen to the latest Football Daily podcast<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/articles\/cl5q9dk9jl3o\">\n<p>Get football news sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published16 August 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Red cards for players covering mouths &#8211; InfantinoImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Gianni Infantino celebrated 10 years as Fifa president on ThursdayByDale JohnsonFootball issues correspondentP&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}