Fox Sports counted 15 red cards across the full fixture list, more than triple the four issued at Russia 2018 and the four at Qatar 2022 1. Northeastern University's NetSI research group, counting earlier, logged 13 by the end of the round of sixteen 2. Fox counted after the final and Northeastern with a quarter of the matches still unplayed, so the two totals are checkpoints in the same rise rather than rival claims.
Fouls and yellow cards fell over the same period, which points at the instruction given to officials rather than at rougher football. Two mechanisms are documented: FIFA's new sanction for players who cover their mouths during confrontations, used at least twice, and VAR (the video assistant referee system) upgrading three initially yellow decisions to red on review. Mark Clattenburg, the former Premier League referee working for Fox Sports, attributed part of the rise to players taking cards deliberately, on the calculation that a 26-man squad absorbs a suspension more comfortably than a 23-man one did 3. Squad expansion set that price, and no rule change was needed to lower it.
The cards climbed at a tournament that was scoring freely, one that had passed 300 goals before the semi-finals . Sendings off up, fouls down, goals up: that combination fits a stricter reading of a narrow set of offences rather than a coarser game. Whether the pattern survives into qualifying depends on instructions FIFA has not published.
