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Football

10th Jul 2018

Supporters in disbelief as Blaise Matuidi is allowed to play on after elbow

Viewers believe he should not have been allowed back onto the pitch

Wayne Farry

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.

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