UEFA president Gianni Infantino has called for players who cover their mouths in on-pitch confrontations to be sent off, as there should be a presumption they have said something they “shouldn’t have.”
Infantino’s words come after Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior said he was racially abused by Benfica‘s Gianluca Prestianni in their Champions League playoff first leg, with Prestianni covering his mouth during the alleged incident.
UEFA have since opened an investigation into the accusation with Prestianni suspended for the second leg between the two sides and facing up to a 10-match ban should he be found guilty by European football’s governing body.
“If a player covers his mouth and says something, and this has a racist consequence, then he has to be sent off, obviously,” Infantino told Sky News.
“There must be a presumption that he has said something he shouldn’t have said, otherwise he wouldn’t have had to cover his mouth.
“There are situations which we did not foresee [Prestianni case].
“Of course, when you deal with a disciplinary case, you have to analyse the situation, you have to have evidence, but we cannot just be satisfied with that going forward.”
FIFA have announced plans to introduce measures ahead of the 2026 World Cup to prevent players from covering their mouths during confrontations at Saturday’s meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB)
“You can see when a player is talking to an opponent, there are very few circumstances where they should need when they’re confronting them to cover their mouth,” Mark Bullingham, English FA CEO and IFAB member, said.
– FIFA plan to combat mouth-covering after Vinícius Jr. incident
– Benfica deny report Prestianni admitted racist abuse of Vini
– Explained: What is Prima Facie, the term used in Prestianni’s suspension?
Measures could be agreed and implemented in time for use at this summer’s World Cup, with next month’s FIFA Congress in Vancouver the next important staging post.
Infantino, meanwhile, wants to encourage guilty parties to take public responsibility.
“Maybe we should also think about not just punishing, but also somehow allowing, changing our culture, allowing players or whoever does something to apologise,” he said.
“You can do things that you don’t want to do in a moment of anger [and] apologise and then the sanction has to be different, to move one step further and maybe we should think about something like that as well.
“And these are actions that we can take and we have to take in order to be serious about our fight against racism.”
Information from PA contributed to this report.
