Enrique erupts over the Hakimi incident: what happened is a farce, are we playing a children's game?
Luis Enrique was furious. The Paris Saint-Germain manager let rip at a refereeing decision during his side's Champions League clash with Villarreal, after the French giants were left briefly short of players when three substitutions were held up.
It all kicked off in the 74th minute. PSG were cruising 5-0, having bossed the game from start to finish, when referee Felix Zwayer stepped in to enforce the new rule on how quickly substituted players must leave the pitch.
Enrique had opted for a triple change, hauling off Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha and Désiré Doué and sending on David Boly, Lucas Beraldo and Quentin Ndjantou. But Hakimi and Vitinha dawdled on their way off, and because they failed to clear the pitch inside the allotted time, the referee refused to let all three replacements come on at once. That left PSG a man down.
The call enraged the Spaniard. He tried to shove one of his substitutes onto the pitch, earning the player a yellow card, while the referee waved play on, according to a report in the newspaper "Marca".
Enrique said after the match: "What happened regarding the three substitutions was a farce. Imagine if the score were 0-0, then they take three players off you, and after that I push one of them on and he gets a yellow card, I would have pushed the other players on too! What is this? Are we playing a children's game?".
"We have to respect the professionals too, just as we respect the refereeing team," he added.
At the heart of it is a new amendment to the laws of the game, approved by the International Football Association Board. It states that a substituted player must leave the pitch within 10 seconds of the referee's signal or the raising of the substitution board.
Go over that time limit and the player still has to come off, but the substitute cannot enter until the first stoppage in play once a full minute has elapsed since the restart, and only with the referee's permission. The idea is to clamp down on time-wasting and stop matches losing their rhythm.
PSG ran out 6-0 winners, David Boly adding the sixth in the 78th minute to round off a thumping victory. Even that comprehensive scoreline could not stop their coach ramping up his protest at the new rule.
