28 October 2007, by Marco Pereira

FC Porto to kick “Unfair Play” into touch

Club announces decision to enforce UEFA recommendation

In an age where FIFA are desperately trying to promote sportsmanship in the game of football with their Fair Play programme, FC Porto have announced that the club will not be kicking the ball out of play when an adversary is down on the ground injured.

The Portuguese champions have made the announcement having tired of, what they feel, are teams manipulating their goodwill.

As a result, the club have shot out a warning to all other teams in the league that they will continue to play on, in such situations, until the referee blows the whistle for a stoppage in play to have the player in question attended to.

The decision comes in the wake of a recommendation by UEFA to leave it to the referee to decide when a game should be halted because of injury. Europe’s governing body has made an amendment to Rule 5, which now reads: “The official will stop play when, in his opinion, a player is badly hurt, supervising his removal from the field of play.”

“We will adopt the recommendation from UEFA,” stated Portuguese international midfielder, Raul Meireles. “Some teams take advantage of fair-play when they play against FC Porto.”

Meireles was backed up by none other than club president, Pinto da Costa. The Porto head is in agreement with the rule book and would like to see the rule enforced as he feels the responsibility squarely lies with the match official and none of the players on the pitch.

“UEFA have given instructions that the referees are the ones to decide when a match should be interrupted and we will proceed as such. I believe a good football match is compromised due to these persistent stoppages. We want to contribute to improve these aspects.”

It is not the first time in the modern game that an announcement such as this one has been made. Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson did the same thing two seasons ago, and expected the opposition to do the same when they played against his side.

FC Porto will be putting their new philosophy into practice as they take on Leixoes on Monday, although the Portuguese champions shall be weary of the saying, “if you live by the sword, you die by the sword”. It remains to be seen if the team react badly when one of their players is down injured and the opposition does not kick the ball into touch.