Vanishing spray to be used at FIFA Club World Cup
Referees at the FIFA Club World Cup are to be permitted to use vanishing spray to mark out the distance for a defensive wall.
The spray, which has already been trialled at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup and Under-17 World Cup, marks out a line that the defending team must stay behind at free-kicks and vanishes within a minute.
Use of the technology was approved in March by the International Football Association Board, allowing any confederation, member association or league to use it in future if they wished, and the Club World Cup, which gets under way in Morocco in December, will be the first FIFA-sanctioned senior tournament to do so.
And FIFA head of refereeing Massimo Busacca believes the spray will become a valuable tool for officials, hinting it could come into place for next year's FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
"A large majority of the officials considered the spray as a useful and helpful tool," he said. "The spray has a clear preventive effect.
"The distance was always respected, so no yellow card for not respecting the distance had to be given throughout the two tournaments played so far.
"After the Club World Cup in Morocco further evaluations will be made.
"We will review the results and discuss if the spray will be used also in future FIFA competitions."
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