2006 FIFA World Cup Disciplinary Record - Additional Punishment

Additional Punishment

For serious transgressions, a longer suspension may be handed down at the discretion of a FIFA disciplinary committee. The disciplinary committee is also charged with reviewing any incidents that were missed by the officials and can award administrative red cards and suspensions accordingly. However, just as appeals of red cards are not considered, the disciplinary committee is also not allowed to review transgressions that were already punished by the referee with something less than a red card. For example, if a player is booked but not sent off for a dangerous tackle, the disciplinary committee cannot subsequently deem the challenge to be violent conduct and then upgrade the card to a red. However, if the same player then spits at the opponent but is still not sent off, then the referee's report would be unlikely to mention this automatic red card offence. Video evidence of the spitting incident could then be independently reviewed.

As a rule, only automatic red card offenses are considered for longer bans. A player who gets sent off for picking up two yellow cards in the same match will not have his automatic one-match ban extended by FIFA on account of what he did to get the second booking, because the referee has not deemed him to have committed an automatic red card offense.

If FIFA suspends a player after his team's elimination from the tournament, or for more games than the team ends up playing without him prior to the final and/or their elimination, then the remaining suspension must be served during the team's next competitive internationals. For a particularly grave offence (such as João Pinto's punching a referee in the 2002 FIFA World Cup), FIFA has the power to impose a lengthy ban against the offender.