IFAB confirms major VAR error: Breel Embolo should not have been sent off against Argentina
The International Football Association Board, known by the acronym IFAB, has confirmed that the VAR protocol was incorrectly applied in one of the most important and controversial decisions of the 2026 World Cup. Swiss forward Breel Embolo should not have received a second yellow card for simulation in the quarter-final against Argentina because, in that situation, the video assistant did not have the authority to change the very nature of the referee's original decision. In a circular published on 27 July, IFAB clarified that the "mistaken identity" provision may be used only to identify the player who committed an offence that had already been awarded. Under the same procedural basis, an awarded offence by one team cannot be transformed into simulation by a player from the opposing team. That is precisely what happened in Kansas City, where Switzerland were reduced to ten players with the score at 1:1, before Argentina won 3:1 after extra time.
IFAB's clarification does not change the official result of the match or automatically open proceedings for it to be replayed. Under Law 5, the referee's decisions regarding facts connected with play, including the result, are final once the match has ended. Nevertheless, the confirmation that the permitted scope of VAR intervention was exceeded carries considerable weight because the error occurred in the quarter-final of football's biggest competition, at a moment that directly changed the numerical balance on the pitch. IFAB did not determine how the match would have ended had Embolo remained in the game, so it cannot be claimed that the disputed decision by itself determined the winner. However, the official interpretation clearly confirms that Switzerland should not have played the closing stages of normal time and the entirety of extra time with one player fewer.
How the decision that changed the quarter-final was made
The quarter-final between Argentina and Switzerland was played on 11 July, local time, at the stadium in Kansas City. According to FIFA's official data, Argentina took the lead in the 10th minute through Alexis Mac Allister, while Dan Ndoye equalised at 1:1 in the 67th minute. Five minutes after the equaliser, the incident that defined the match occurred. Embolo went down after a duel with Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes, and Portuguese referee João Pinheiro judged that Paredes had stopped the Swiss forward with a foul. He awarded Switzerland a free kick and showed the Argentine player a yellow card.
Video assistant Guillermo Pacheco Larios then recommended an on-field review, invoking the provision concerning the mistaken identification of a player. After reviewing the footage at the pitchside monitor, Pinheiro overturned his original decision, rescinded Paredes's yellow card and concluded that Embolo had simulated the contact. He showed the Swiss player a yellow card, and because Embolo had already been cautioned in the first half for a foul on Paredes himself, the caution automatically became his second yellow card and a dismissal. Switzerland were therefore reduced to ten players during a period in which they had just brought the match back into balance. Head coach Murat Yakin and the players protested immediately, arguing that VAR had become involved in an incident that should not have been subject to that type of review.
The score remained 1:1 until the end of the 90 minutes, but Argentina used their numerical advantage in extra time. Julián Álvarez scored in the 112th minute, while Lautaro Martínez made it 3:1 in the first minute of added time at the end of the second extra-time period. FIFA's statistics show that Argentina finished the match with 22 attempts to Switzerland's 11 and with greater possession, but those figures cannot separate the effect of the dismissal from the rest of the match. Switzerland had to change their style of play, close down space with one player fewer and expend additional energy before extra time. After the match, Yakin said the decision had been decisive for the course of the encounter and that such an application of the rules had "destroyed" his team's match.
What "mistaken identity" actually means
The dispute arises from the difference between two questions that may appear similar at first glance but are strictly separated in the VAR protocol. The first question is who committed the offence that the referee had already awarded. The second is whether the awarded offence occurred at all and whether the entire incident should be legally described in a different way. IFAB allows VAR, in a case of mistaken identity, to correct the name of the sanctioned player, for example when the referee cautions the wrong footballer in a crowd of players. However, under Circular No. 34, a yellow card that is not a second yellow may be reviewed only to identify the player who committed an offence that has already been sanctioned; the offence itself may not be reviewed or changed during that process.
In Kansas City, VAR was not merely determining who had committed Paredes's alleged offence. The intervention ended with a complete reversal of the referee's assessment: the decision that Paredes had fouled Embolo was transformed into a decision that Embolo had simulated. This changed both the offender and the type of punishable conduct, as well as the team against which the restart was awarded. IFAB's new clarification means that the mistaken identity provision did not provide a procedural basis for such a change. In other words, VAR was not permitted to raise the question of simulation merely because a yellow card had initially been shown to a player from the opposing team.
This distinction is also important because VAR was not designed as a system that re-referees every contact or every caution. Its powers are limited to certain categories of potentially match-changing errors, such as a goal or disallowed goal, a penalty, a direct red card, a clearly incorrect second yellow card and certain cases of mistaken identity. An ordinary yellow card is generally not an independent area for VAR intervention. The expansion of the protocol for the 2026/27 season made it possible to correct some situations that had previously been beyond its reach, but it did not abolish the fundamental restriction under which the entire nature of an incident cannot be reassessed under the pretext of checking identity.
Why the fact that it was Embolo's second yellow does not justify the intervention
Additional confusion is caused by the fact that Embolo received a second yellow card after the review, while under the newer protocol VAR may intervene when a second yellow card is clearly incorrect. That, however, was not the initial subject of the review. The on-field referee first cautioned Paredes, for whom the caution did not mean a dismissal, and VAR opened the process under the category of mistaken identity. Only after the nature of the decision had been changed did Embolo receive the caution that removed him from the match. The consequence of the intervention was a red card, but the consequence alone cannot retroactively create authority for a review that was not permitted at the beginning of the process.
IFAB's rules distinguish between reviewing a clearly incorrect second yellow card and a situation in which the video assistant seeks a new yellow card that the referee did not award. An example given in the official interpretations allows VAR to cancel a second yellow card when a player has been wrongly punished and the footage shows that the opponent simulated. However, VAR may not arbitrarily seek every missed second caution or use another category of review to arrive at such a sanction. In Embolo's case, the problem was not merely the final judgement on whether he went down too early or exaggerated the contact. The key problem was the procedural route by which the referee arrived at the caution for simulation.
Such a restriction may appear formalistic, particularly when slow-motion footage reveals details the referee did not see. Nevertheless, the limits of VAR exist to prevent an unlimited return to almost every decision and to ensure that teams know in advance which situations may be reviewed. If every incorrectly awarded caution could become an entry point for a complete reassessment of the incident, the number of interventions would increase significantly, and the distinction between "minimal interference" and re-refereeing the match would become unclear. That is precisely why IFAB is now emphasising that any expansion of the authority to detect simulation must be expressly prescribed following a separate review of the protocol.
A similar incorrect application occurred in the United States-Paraguay match
The Embolo case was not the first time at the 2026 World Cup that the mistaken identity provision was used to change a decision of an offence into a decision of simulation. In the Group D match between the United States and Paraguay, played on 12 June in Los Angeles, American defender Tim Ream initially received a yellow card after Miguel Almirón went down. VAR Carlos del Cerro Grande called Dutch referee Danny Makkelie to the monitor. Makkelie then rescinded Ream's caution and showed Almirón a yellow card for simulation. The United States won 4:1, so the decision did not have the same immediate competitive effect as Embolo's dismissal.
After that match, the application of the rule was presented as a permitted innovation, and FIFA, according to reports at the time, supported the refereeing interpretation. In the quarter-final, the same procedural pattern produced a far more serious consequence because Embolo's yellow card automatically meant dismissal. IFAB now states that the use of the clause to deal with simulation during the World Cup was well received and will be included in a detailed review of the VAR protocol. At the same time, it has explicitly ruled that such an application must not continue until the review has been completed. This means that a positive response from part of the football public is not sufficient to make the procedure lawful without a clear change to the wording of the protocol.
The clarification also reveals a problem in communication between the bodies that make the rules, the competition organisers and the refereeing teams. IFAB determines the Laws of the Game, while FIFA runs the World Cup and operationally manages refereeing standards at the tournament. When new wording leaves room for different interpretations, the consequences are seen not only in professional seminars but also on the pitch, in front of millions of viewers. In this case, the same interpretation was applied at least twice before IFAB publicly drew a clear boundary. The announced review will therefore have to answer not only whether VAR should police simulation, but also how to prevent experimental or expanded interpretations from being introduced without an entirely unambiguous legal basis.
The result stands, but the debate over responsibility is only beginning
IFAB's acknowledgement of a procedural error does not mean that an intention to favour Argentina has been established, nor does it provide evidence for claims that the match was fixed. The available official documents refer to an improper application of the protocol, not to manipulation of the result. It is also impossible to reconstruct reliably an alternative course of the match in which Switzerland remained with eleven players. Argentina had created chances even before the dismissal, possessed the quality to win and ultimately scored two goals in extra time. At the same time, it would be equally inaccurate to minimise the effect of a decision that left one team a player down in a level quarter-final.
Under Law 5, the referee cannot subsequently change a restart decision after play has resumed or the match has ended, and the referee's decisions regarding facts connected with play and the result are considered final. Circular No. 34 therefore applies primarily to future matches. It instructs referees and VAR teams not to use mistaken identity as a route for punishing simulation until the review has been completed. IFAB has not announced a decision to replay the quarter-final, annul the result or change the standings of Argentina and Switzerland. The sporting consequence for Switzerland remains irreparable, while the institutional consequence must be a clearer and more consistent interpretation of the rules.
For the future of VAR, the most important question is whether football wishes to extend video review to obvious acts of simulation that directly result in an opposing player receiving a card. The argument in favour of such a change is that technology can correct a clear injustice and punish an attempt to deceive. The argument against it is the risk of increasingly frequent interruptions and of turning almost every disputed contact into a multi-minute analysis. IFAB has announced that it will include the experiences from the World Cup in a detailed review, but until that process has been completed, the boundary is now explicit: a player's identity may be corrected, but the offence itself may not be changed under that provision.
For Embolo and Switzerland, the clarification comes too late to change what happened in Kansas City. Nevertheless, it removes the central doubt that remained after the quarter-final. Under the rules in force at the tournament, VAR was not permitted to transform Paredes's awarded foul into simulation by Embolo, and the Swiss forward should not have been sent off through that process. This case is therefore likely to become one of the most important examples in future referee education: technology may assist the referee only within the powers expressly granted to it, even when the footage creates a desire to correct the broader picture of an incident.
Sources:
- IFAB - Circular No. 34 of 27 July 2026 and the official clarification of the application of the mistaken identity provision (link)
- IFAB - Changes to the Laws of the Game for the 2026/27 season and the scope of VAR interventions (link)
- IFAB - Law 5, the finality of refereeing decisions and official interpretations of second-yellow-card reviews (link)
- FIFA - Official report and data from the Argentina-Switzerland quarter-final in Kansas City (link)
- FIFA - Official report from the United States-Paraguay match (link)
- The Guardian - Report from Kansas City, description of the VAR process and reactions from the Swiss national team (link)
- The Guardian - Report on the earlier application of the same interpretation in the United States-Paraguay match (link)
- Reuters / Rediff - Confirmation that Embolo should not have been sent off and the context of IFAB's circular (link)