Referees

Things are heating up in the Champions League (read: Real Madrid bottom of Group A) and there’s no surer sign of the increase in dramatics than managers getting booked. In a first for the Champions League, coaches can now be on the receiving end of both yellow and red cards from the match official, and although Match Day 1 of the competition came and went without history being made, Match Day 2 brought the moment we’d all been waiting for.

Liverpool’s defense of its Champions League crown is off to a shaky start following a 2-0 defeat to Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo in Italy on Tuesday. Liverpool supporters will disagree with the game-changing penalty that Felix Brych awarded Napoli in the 82nd minute, but it certainly wasn’t a vintage performance from the Reds.

Can you get called for a dive if you make a match-saving pass as you go down?

According to referee Kevin Friend, yes, you can.

Aston Villa was denied a 96th-minute equalizer in a 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday as Friend disallowed a Henri Lansbury goal for a perceived Jack Grealish dive, despite the fact Grealish assisted the goal.

Huh?

For the second time in three days, a Ligue 1 match was halted over homophobic messages from the stands. A PSG-Metz banner forced the stoppage of play in the first half of the match, 48 hours after the Nice-Marseille match was delayed.

Ligue 1 has new rules against homophobia in stadiums for the 2019-20 season, and those rules have been violated twice this week. 

The Premier League season is less than 24 hours old, but you can’t escape people complaining about the introduction of Video Assistant Referee. The Man City VAR decisions in particular rankled the British pundits who make a living on arguing about referee calls.

Personally, I’m already tired of people complaining about getting calls right.

Lionel Messi was not happy after his team was beaten by Brazil in the 2019 Copa América — so unhappy he suggested the match was rigged.

Messi will be even unhappier after being handed a three-month ban for his comments.

We all know rules we want to get rid of or add, if only for a second to help our team win a game. But these Premier League rule changes are here to stay. How often they get called into effect is anybody’s guess.

Premier League Rule Changes 2019-20

1. Substitutions

In an effort to reduce time-wasting near the end of matches, players being substituted will have to leave the pitch at the nearest point to them.