FIFA show their true colours by getting tough on… socks and shin-pads

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UPDATED:

21:14 GMT, 17 August 2012

Of all the issues they might have
dealt with to boost your enjoyment during the new Premier League season,
the lawmakers at FIFA have chosen to demand that all tape holding up
socks and shin-pads must be the same colour as the sock.

Never mind goal-line technology, Sepp
Blatter is getting tough in the sock department. It will be a challenge
for kit men up and down the land, first sourcing the right colour tape
to match the socks their team are wearing on any given day, and then
explaining to players with their own rituals and superstitions why it is
so.

In charge: Fifa president Sepp Blatter

Although it is a FIFA rule change and thus applies to all levels of the game, referees are not expected to impose it with great energy in parks football, where sometimes socks don't match, let alone the tape.

The players' equipment rule-change comes in to help assistant referees looking across the offside line see the distinction between the teams after some players had taken to using so much tape on their socks that it might be difficult to tell clearly what colour the socks were.