Marco van Baston, now Fifa’s chief technical development officer, said that football could soon borrow a refereeing rule from rugby.
Under the new rule, only the captain of the side would be able to speak to the referee, and vice-versa.
“There are a lot of players now who are complaining during a game,” he told the BBC.
“I am sure the behaviour of the players can be better – we are thinking about putting it back in the right direction.”
“We can learn from every sport”
“I think we can learn from every sport and they can learn from us – but we have to confront the problem.”
Earlier this year, the English football referees started handing out yellow and red cards to players who confronted match officials or used offensive language towards them, in a bid to reduce “intolerable behaviour”.
But now, Fifa could go a step further by implementing the rule from rugby.
