Expert Interpretation | Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning's World Preliminaries against Thailand accumulated yellow cards and were suspended?
Jankovic led the Chinese men's national football team south to Bangkok, where they will face Thailand in the first round of the group stage of the 2026 World Preliminary Round of 36 in Asia on November 16. Before the game, there was a sudden news on the Internet that "Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning were suspended for accumulating yellow cards", but this was purely misinformation about the military situation and even suspected of disturbing the morale of the military, because after FIFA revised the disciplinary regulations, the two did not have the problem of suspension at all.
How did the suspension rumors come about?
The rumors about Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning's suspension can be traced back to the final round of the group stage of the 2022 Qatar World Preliminary Asian Zone Top 12 at the end of March 2022. The reporter once wrote an article before the game entitled "The last national football team needs to be vigilant against yellow cards to "clear the obstacles" for the 2023 Asian Cup", which focused on the issue of red and yellow cards that the Chinese team needs to consider.
Because before Muscat played Oman away, the Chinese team had 10 players with yellow cards:
Wang Shenchao (against Australia on 2 September 2021)
Wang Gang (against Japan on September 7, 2021)
Wei Shihao (v Vietnam on 7 October 2021)
Zhang Linpeng (11 November 2021 against Oman)
Yuning Zhang (against Australia on 16 November 2021)
Wu Lei (against Japan on January 27, 2022)
Xu Xin, Luo Guofu (against Vietnam on 1 February 2022)
Hao Junmin, Zhu Chenjie (against Saudi Arabia on 24 March 2022)
Among the 10 players with yellow cards, except for Wang Gang, Wei Shihao who were not selected due to injury, Wu Lei and Luo Guofu did not participate, the 6 players with yellow cards only need to receive a yellow card in the match against Oman, which means that they will have to miss the first round of the group stage of next year's Asian Cup.
Because according to the relevant regulations, the national football team has ended all the top 12 matches, and the automatic suspension will continue to the next continental competition, that is, the first match of the group stage of the 2023 Asian Cup.
In the last game against Oman, Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning each received a yellow card, plus they had a yellow ranking on their backs, and these two players needed to be suspended for one game.
Under normal circumstances, according to the previous relevant regulations, the suspension of Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning should be implemented in the first game of the group stage of the Asian Cup in June 2023. However, the Asian Cup has been postponed to January 2024, so those who do not know the specific situation, especially the relevant rules have changed, naturally think that the "next continental competition" is the 2026 World Preliminary Asian Round of 36 this month.
But in fact, this is a complete misunderstanding, mainly because FIFA has supplemented and revised the relevant disciplinary regulations, and the latest 2023 version of the FIFA Disciplinary Code has a new explanation, similar to the situation of Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning, which can be implemented in the previous international A-level friendly matches of the Chinese team, without the need to enforce the relevant suspension across tournaments.
The AFC has not been notified of the suspension
A special situation that needs to be explained is that as early as after the Chinese men's national football team submits the registration list of participating players, if there is a red or yellow card or disciplinary punishment involved, the AFC will notify you by email or letter in advance.
For example, before the first group stage of the 6th U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games Men's Asian Qualifiers in Dalian in September this year, Nabijiang's name was included in the list of registrations submitted by the Chinese Olympic team to the AFC, and the AFC sent an email to the Chinese Football Association informing the Chinese side that Nabijiang would be automatically suspended for one game.
Moreover, at the pre-match joint meeting before the start of the Olympic preliminaries, the match supervisor appointed by the AFC also informed Nabijiang of the suspension of one match at the meeting. Therefore, in the game of the Chinese Olympic team against the United Arab Emirates team, Nabijiang can only stand in the stands, not sit on the bench, and it is impossible to enter the starting lineup.
Similarly, after the Chinese men's national football team submitted its squad, the Chinese Football Association has never received a similar email or letter from the AFC, informing the Chinese team that some players need to be suspended in the round of 36 of the North American World Preliminary Tournament.
At the joint meeting before the match between Thailand and China held on November 15, the match supervisor appointed by the AFC also did not read out the relevant notice of the AFC at the meeting, and confirmed that no player from Thailand and China needed to be suspended. Therefore, there is no so-called situation of "Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning will be automatically suspended and absent from the game with the Thai team" for the Chinese team.
Of course, above the pre-match joint meeting, the match supervisor will also add a sentence that if there is a need for suspension between the two sides, please report it automatically. In a similar situation, not only the pre-match joint meeting of the Thai-Chinese battle, but also the pre-match contact meeting of any other event, the match supervisor will say so, because only by adding such a sentence, the match supervisor will not be held responsible, and then the AFC will be exempted from liability. In other words, once a situation arises, the relevant party is still liable.
However, the reason why the news of "Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning's suspension" is everywhere on the domestic Internet, and even the situation is getting worse, is that the communicator may not know a little, that is, FIFA has revised the relevant regulations, and the competition rules of the 2026 World Preliminary Tournament and the 2022 World Preliminary Tournament have also changed a lot.
FIFA changes the disciplinary rules
As mentioned earlier, on March 28, 2022, before the last game of the Chinese team in the last World Preliminary Round of 12 of the Oman team, the reporter wrote the article "The last national football team needs to be vigilant against yellow cards to "clear the obstacles" for the 2023 Asian Cup", and also proposed that once a player receives a yellow card in the game against the Oman team, the suspension will be extended to the first game of the next major competition. However, the reason why there is such a statement is according to the competition rules of the 2022 World Preliminaries.
According to the competition rules of the Qatar 2022 World Preliminary Championships, Article 4 of Article 15 "Yellow Cards and Red Cards", "Any suspension that cannot be completed in this tournament will be enforced in the next official match of the team represented." Moreover, according to the definition of "official match" in the FIFA Statutes, this kind of competition refers to an official tournament hosted or hosted by the Continental Football Confederation or above, not an international A-level competition.
Therefore, the reporter wrote this article on March 28, 2022, that if a player receives another yellow card in an away match against Oman, it will be executed in the Asian Cup in June 2023, such a statement is not a problem.
However, time has changed, football is round, and the rules of football are constantly changing and improving. The FIFA Council adopted the new FIFA Disciplinary Code at its meeting on 16 December 2022, which will be implemented from 1 February 2023.
Moreover, according to this change in the regulations, in the latest 2026 World Preliminary Competition Regulations, FIFA's rules for red and yellow cards have also undergone significant changes, or they are written more clearly and meticulously.
We can compare the previously listed 2022 World Preliminary Competition Rules with only 4 rules about red and yellow cards, but the latest 2026 World Preliminary Competition Rules have increased to 6 rules on red and yellow cards, and each of them is more detailed. Of course, this is a later story, and it is another topic, so I will not expand on it here.
In FIFA's new disciplinary policy, the relevant "suspensions" are explained in more detail and the implementation method is also more clear. See screenshot below for details.
In the new rules, there is a breakdown of suspensions for "red cards" and "accumulated yellow cards". In other words, the situation of "direct red card" and "two yellows and one red" in one game is completely different from the situation of accumulating two yellow cards in two or more games.
Take the situation encountered by the Chinese men's and women's national teams this year as an example. For example, Zhang Rui of the women's national football team received a red card in the group stage of the Australia and New Zealand World Cup against Haiti, in addition to an automatic suspension of one game, she was also subject to the disciplinary punishment of an additional suspension of one game by FIFA, which required a total of two suspensions. As a result, according to point 1 of the second sub-clause, "carried over to the representative team's next official match", because only competitions hosted by continental or higher football confederations are official matches, Zhang Rui can only be suspended for the Paris Olympic women's football qualifiers against North Korea in October. The previous Hangzhou Asian Games Women's Football Match was not an official match hosted by the AFC, so even if the Chinese women's football team did not arrange Zhang Rui to play in the first game of the Asian Games group stage against Mongolia, it is not considered to be suspended.
As for the suspension of Nabijiang, it is because in the last match of the group stage of the U19 Asian Youth Championship qualifiers in November 2019, "two yellows turned into one red", and the suspension also needs to be enforced. Thus, the second point of the second sub-clause applies to Nabijan, which states that "it shall be carried over to the next highest age category". Therefore, Nabijiang can only be suspended in the first game of the Dalian Olympic preliminaries.
Moreover, this is the situation where Zhang Rui and Nabijiang both received red cards or received the best disciplinary punishment. However, there is a fourth point in this rule, which is that it is not a red card, but because of the accumulation of yellow cards. Therefore, such situations have been added to the FIFA Disciplinary Ordinance.
Under this new rule, in any case, a suspension arising from the accumulation of yellow cards in different matches in the same competition will not be carried over to another competition. This applies to the case of Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning. Because both of them received two yellow cards in the two matches of the 2022 World Preliminary Round of 12, which led to the suspension of the game. But the suspension will not be carried out in the new 2026 World Qualifiers.
Therefore, why it is said that "Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning will miss the game with the Thai team due to suspension" is a rumor, I am afraid it is very clear. The rumors are fundamentally due to the lack of attention to the changes in FIFA rules. Recalling the suspension of Nabijiang and Zhang Rui, the Chinese Football Association received a special email notice from the AFC, and then before the 2026 World Preliminaries, the Chinese Football Association did not receive any notice from the AFC that any player needed to be suspended, and it was not said that any player would be suspended at the pre-match contact meeting on November 15.
While we have been saying that "Chinese football needs professionals", our fans and netizens also need to trust the professional analysis of real professionals, rather than believing those hearsay.