The world watched when Uruguayan midfielder Alvaro Pereira had taken a knee in the face from England's Raheem Starling during a match at the World Cup. Bravely shrugging doctors' recommendations to take him out of the game and having a substitute replace him in the field, many were left in awe about Pereira's dedication to the team, even though moments before he was unconscious for about a minute and appeared to be showing signs of having a concussion when he rejected the doctors' call.
On the other hand, it also shed light to FIFA's antiquated rules on substitution. In Pereira's case, Business Insider said that FIFA's rules allowed him to continue as the organization does not allow teams enough time for a proper evaluation of players for concussions.
A play-by-play of the moments after the collision showed that the contact Pereira had received in the head was severe, and more evident so when he was lying on the ground clearly knocked out. Moreover, his woozy movements while calling off the doctors' order also showed how grave the impact was. In all of the short time given to the team manager to handle Pereira's case, he is only left with three options.
Under FIFA guidelines, the manager will risk losing one of his best players for the rest of the match once a substitute has been called to replace him while a health check is done and recovery is on the way. A player cannot re-enter a match if he has been replaced by a substitute, Business Insider said. On the other hand, the team manager could order a health check for Pereira, which would force a team to operate one man short in such a crucial match. If FIFA has similar measures to that of the National Football League, a proper concussion takes eight minutes at least. The third option, which was clearly taken by Uruguay's manager, would have him trust Pereira's instincts and reinserted the injured player without an evaluation.
As NFL is currently battling a crisis about concussion injuries, there is no doubt that the same thing might happen in FIFA as well, considering how common head injuries are occurring in football.
