Football's top rulemakers have confirmed what Switzerland fans suspected all along: the red card shown to Breel Embolo in the World Cup quarterfinal against Argentina was against the rules.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) issued a circular, reported by The Athletic, clarifying that the so-called "mistaken identity" rule was misapplied. Embolo was sent off in the 72nd minute with the score at 1-1, after VAR intervened to reverse a foul originally called against Argentina's Leandro Paredes. The referee flipped the decision entirely — wiping Paredes' yellow card and replacing it with a second yellow for Embolo, for diving. Problem is, that's not what the rule allows.
What the rule actually says
The "mistaken identity" rule exists for one narrow purpose: correcting cases where the wrong player was carded. It is not a tool to reclassify a foul as a dive after the fact. That's a completely different kind of decision — a subjective judgment reversal — and VAR protocol doesn't cover it in that way. IFAB is now making clear it never did.
The irony is that IFAB acknowledges the interpretation was viewed positively in some quarters during the tournament. That's a polite way of saying referees ran with it and nobody stopped them in real time. Now the protocol needs formal review before it can be applied again.
UEFA and the Swiss Football League had already said they'd follow IFAB's stricter reading of the rule. This circular just makes it official.
The consequence Switzerland has to live with
None of this changes what happened on the pitch. Switzerland lost 3-1 in extra time, eliminated from a quarterfinal they were level in at the moment Embolo walked off. It would have been their first ever World Cup semifinal.
You can debate whether ten-man Switzerland would have held on regardless — Argentina were the better team over 120 minutes and went on to lift the trophy. But the sending-off reshaped the match at its most critical point, and it was based on a rule application that was, by IFAB's own account, simply wrong.
That's not a footnote. That's the quarterfinal.
