Former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier confirms plans to add fourth sub…
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Football’s world governing body FIFA, organisers of the World Cup, are considering changing the game’s rules to allow an extra substitute if a game goes into Extra Time, reports Fox Sports.
The plans could be in place for the 2018 World Cup, set to be held in Russia, and are likely to be met with with mixed response from football fans all over the globe.
If the proposals go ahead, instead of the traditional three allowed substitutes, a drawn match during the knock-out stages of the World Cup, would allow a manager to be granted an additional substitution to use or not use as he pleased during Extra Time.
“I think that’s an idea that we will put forward to football’s rules-making panel,” Gerard Houllier, a member of the FIFA technical study group, and former manager of Liverpool, Lyon and France, claimed.
“It’s a good idea. Only in extra time. Maybe if someone is injured, why not?”
“Substitutes play such an important part because they come with a freshness and attitude,” Houllier continued.
“Nearly a quarter of (all) the goals have been scored in the final 15 minutes of the game.”
Despite the on-pitch success of this World Cup so far, many fans of the global game are disenchanted with FIFA at the moment, and could look to reject any ideas of change immediately.
While innovations like the ‘ten-yard spray’ have gone down well, the complete farce that is the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar means that FIFA, and Sepp Blatter in particular are widely disliked and mistrusted.