On Saturday night in Philadelphia, France defeated Paraguay 1-0 and advanced to the World Cup quarterfinals on a penalty kick by Kylian Mbappé (70th minute). But this match will be remembered above all as a demonstration: that of soccer’s inability to enforce discipline, broadcast to the world.
Let’s recap what the press reports documented. Mbappé was pulled to the ground by Cubas (34th minute), sparking a general scuffle. Galarza elbowed the French captain, far from the ball (39th minute). The same Galarza struck Koundé while he was off the ball, out of referee Tantashev’s line of sight. Cáceres made a series of late challenges, yet was never cautioned. The result for Paraguay: no cards for these actions. The only notable yellow card of the evening related to these incidents? It went to France’s Michael Olise, guilty of shoving Galarza. It’s like a parody.
And now, the controversial question: what will happen to Galarza? In all likelihood, nothing. Soccer does have retrospective disciplinary measures, but they’re the exception, not the rule—generally reserved for cases where officials saw absolutely nothing and failed to address the situation, and triggered on a case-by-case basis, without a dedicated body that systematically reviews every match. A player can therefore strike an opponent far from the ball in a World Cup round of 16 match and continue the tournament as if nothing had happened—if his team had advanced, he would likely have been selected for the next round. VAR, touted since 2018 as a revolution in truth, found nothing to object to on Saturday: the protocol focuses on goals, penalties, and reported straight red cards—not the methodical off-the-ball brawl that marred this match.
Rugby solved this problem thirty years ago
Herein lies the damning reality for soccer: the solution exists, it’s well-documented, it works, and it’s thirty years old. Since the transition to professional play in 1996, every top-level rugby match has been monitored by an independent official: the citation commissioner.
His mandate, set forth in World Rugby Regulation 17, can be summed up in one sentence: to address acts of foul play that escaped the officials’ notice during the match, or that were not penalized in accordance with their true severity. After each match, he reviews the footage—all angles, including those never shown on air, which he can request from the broadcaster. Teams can report incidents to him. If an action crosses the “red card threshold”—meaning the referee would have sent the player off had he seen what the footage shows—the player is “cited,” typically within 48 hours, and appears before an independent disciplinary committee. Exactly as if he’d been shown a red card on the field. The referee didn’t see anything? It doesn’t matter. Is the match over? It doesn’t matter.
Put Saturday’s match through this mill. An elbow strike away from the ball in rugby is a clear case of foul play (Rule 9: striking an opponent)—the classic type of action that warrants a citation. Galarza would have spent his Sunday preparing for his hearing, and a suspension—measured in weeks according to the scale in Regulation 17—would in all likelihood have ended his tournament. Caceres’ repeated late fouls would have, at the very least, warranted a warning from the Citing Commissioner (CCW), which would have been recorded on his record and would have aggravated any future sanctions. Three such warnings or yellow cards accumulated in a single competition, and a hearing is mandatory.
During the match as well, the comparison is stark. The rugby video referee (TMO) can, on his own initiative, flag an act of foul play that the on-field referee missed. In recent years, World Rugby has even added in-game video review, allowing a yellow card to be retroactively upgraded to a red card. Soccer, on the other hand, has created a deliberately myopic VAR: capable of measuring an offside to the millimeter, yet blind by protocol to an elbow to the ribs twenty meters from the ball.
A choice, not an inevitability
Let’s not use complexity as an excuse. Rugby is a team contact sport where contentious points of contact number in the dozens every match—and yet it manages to make this system work, all the way up to the World Cup. Soccer, where such actions are far rarer and far easier to identify, would have no technical difficulty in establishing a disciplinary committee. If it doesn’t, it’s a choice.
And that choice has visible consequences: on Saturday, a team was able to build an entire game plan around a cynical gamble—what the referee doesn’t see costs nothing—and that gamble nearly paid off. In the world of rugby, this calculation is irrational: video review catches up with you during the game; disciplinary action catches up with you afterward. In the soccer of 2026, it remains perfectly profitable.
As long as hitting an opponent away from the ball remains unpunished whenever the referee looks the other way, nights like the one in Philadelphia will keep happening. Rugby showed the way three decades ago. Soccer, however, continues to look the other way—just like its referee did on Saturday night.