Viewers believe that Blaise Matuidi should at least have undergone a concussion check
FIFA are criticised for doing many things wrong. There’s the alleged corruption, the odd choice of destinations for World Cup hosts, the bizarrely draconian rules against overzealous celebrations and the oddly lenient punishments for racism.
Another aspect of the game in which world football’s governing body tends to falls short is on head injuries. While American sports face the majority of criticism for their handling of head injuries – and rightly so – FIFA tends to avoid too much slack purely due to the face that compared to the NFL, head injuries are fairly rare in soccer.
That doesn’t mean they don’t happen though, and Tuesday night’s World Cup semi-final between Belgium and France proved exactly why FIFA need to take head injuries more seriously.
The incident in question occurred late on in the game, as midfielder Blaise Matuidi was barged out of the way by Belgium’s Eden Hazard.
Matuidi had been attempting to get past Hazard on the edge of the box, but was brutally taken out by Hazard who jumped with the full force of his body and elbow into Matuidi’s head.
The PSG midfielder was briefly taken off the pitch but, crucially, was allowed back on. Understandably, given how seriously the topic of head injuries is taken these days (by supporters at least) there was a lot of anger about the decision to let him onto the pitch.
Blaise Matuidi does not look OK. pic.twitter.com/19OoD8WY6y
— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) July 10, 2018
https://twitter.com/OKnox/status/1016769813526515712
Absolutely sickening to allow Matuidi back on. Disgusting behavior from French.
— BIG MAN ON CAMPUS (@JeffNadu) July 10, 2018
https://twitter.com/doomdadame/status/1016769868006346753
https://twitter.com/RandB812/status/1016770012806303744
For the love of everything, get Blaise Matuidi off the field.
— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) July 10, 2018
Pretty sure Matuidi is concussed. The fact that he tried to spray water in his mouth and missed is all you need to know.
— Limpar33 (@Limpar33) July 10, 2018
https://twitter.com/AlexGoldberg_/status/1016769971756720129
