Five Uzbekistan national team players were suspended for Uzbekistan's first qualifier in round four of Asian qualifying, which begins in June 2012. On Matchday Five of the AFC Third Round, Uzbekistan were leading Tajikistan 3-0 in Tashkent. Uzbekistan had already qualified for the next phase of qualifying, but had multiple players sitting on a yellow card.
Two yellow cards collected over the course of the AFC Third Round result in an automatic one-game suspension, so five Uzbekistan players sitting on yellow cards from previous matches purposely took yellow cards for delay of game infractions, thus garnering suspensions for Matchday Six. However, the thought process behind this tactic was that with the suspensions served against Japan on 29 February 2012, these five players would not be risking a second yellow card in that match, an occurrence which would preclude the players from participating in Matchday One of the AFC Fourth Round as their yellow-card suspensions would have to be served at that time.
FIFA did not approve of this tactic, so in addition to the automatic yellow-card suspension for the essentially meaningless Japan match on 29 February 2012, these five players will also be suspended for Uzbekistan's opener in the AFC Fourth Round. The five players disciplined are Vagiz Galiulin, Shavkatjon Mulladjanov, Islom Tuhtahujaev, Sanjar Tursunov, and captain Server Djeparov. Each player was fined 3,000 Swiss francs, and the Uzbekistan Football Federation was penalized 18,000 Swiss francs.
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