Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe will be given a warning about smoking on the touchlines at the World Cup after he lit up during the 3-1 victory over Iran, world soccer governing body Fifa said on Tuesday.
Fifa officials spotted Lavolpe smoking when they reviewed the videotape of Sunday’s match in Nuremberg.
”We looked at the tape and in fact we realised he did smoke,” Fifa’s head of communications Markus Siegler told a daily press briefing.
”An official letter will be sent to the Mexican federation underlining that neither the coaches nor anyone else on the sidelines is allowed to smoke.”
Although spectators in the stadiums at the tournament in Germany are permitted to smoke, Fifa has prohibited players, coaches and officials from doing so.
Lavolpe, who won the World Cup as a player with Argentina in 1978, is a chain-smoker who was rarely seen without a cigarette in his hand at last year’s Confederations Cup in Germany.
Mexico play Angola in their next Group D match in Hanover on Friday. — Sapa-AFP