Referees at the World Cup have new rules to whistle during games

Inja News ژوئن 12, 2026 2 minutes read

In this photo, soccer referee Slavko Vincic, wearing black shorts and a black jersey, holds up a yellow card while standing on a green soccer field in March. Standing around him are soccer players from two teams. Some are wearing red shorts and red jerseys, and others are wearing blue shorts and yellow jerseys.

FIFA match officials, including Slovene referee Slavko Vincic, shown here issuing a yellow card in March, will have new rules to apply during the World Cup.

Michael Campanella/Getty Images

Michael Campanella/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — The referees chosen to work the 2026 World Cup have some new tools to speed up the games and ensure that any match-altering officiating mistakes are corrected.

Among the many changes that fans will see during the World Cup:

A substituted player must exit the field within 10 seconds. If there’s a delay, the team plays a man down for at least one minute before the replacement can enter the field.
There are now five-second countdowns for goal kicks and throw-ins. The team ahead at the end of a game is often slow to put the ball back in play. If a goalkeeper or defending player takes too long on a goal kick, the referee could award a corner kick to the other team. Likewise, if a player deliberately delays a throw-in, the opposing team could be given the throw-in instead.
VAR, the video assistant referee, will have more opportunities to review calls during the game. These include the proper awarding of corner kicks, analysis to determine whether a player was in an offside position and a review of a second yellow card resulting in the send-off of a player.

The chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina, has long focused on time-wasting during games. At the last World Cup, four years ago in Qatar, he ensured that stoppage time was properly added during the competition. Some 90-minute matches saw as much as a half hour of added time.

There’s another technological improvement that viewers will notice at this World Cup: Officials will wear an eye-level video headset, so fans can see a replay of the action as the referee saw it during key decisions.

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