I wouldn’t recommend watching back the foul that broke Ismael Kone’s leg in Canada’s game against Qatar last week.Even if there’s only a very brief shot that made clear the extent of the injury, you know what’s coming. You know the severity of the break. You know about Jesse Marsch saying he could hear Kone’s bone snap. You know it was horrible, so even if you don’t directly see how horrible, your brain fills in the gaps.But if you did watch it back, you’d see that the foul, by Qatari midfielder Assim Madibo, was a reasonably bad one. Kone had the ball and played it down the line, but Madibo was too late and kicked the back of his leg. It seemed pretty clear that it was a slightly late, misguided attempt to play the ball, rather than a deliberate attempt to harm his opponent.Reasonably bad, but not horrendous. Indeed, initially referee Cristian Garay issued a yellow card, only upgrading it when the severity of the injury was clear.In the immediate aftermath, a number of Canadian players, notably full-back Richie Laryea, confronted Madibo, who was ushered away from Kone as he received treatment. The pitch side microphones picked up Marsch and his coaching staff protesting vociferously, with one voice exclaiming that Kone’s “freakin’ leg is hanging off”.Richie Laryea of Canada confronts Qatar’s Assim Madibo (REUTERS/Lee Smith)Madibo looked absolutely distraught. Once it became clear that the injury was a horrific one, and the Canadian players had formed a circle around Kone so that nobody could see the treatment he was undergoing, he obviously knew the gravity of the situation. He didn’t protest when Garay took out his red card, a decision the referee took a few moments later on his own, without consulting a replay. It’s unclear as to whether any of his assistants, either on the pitch or in the VAR booth, advised him to do so.But that was only the first time that Madibo’s punishment was increased. On Wednesday, FIFA announced that he is to be banned for five games, up from the initial mandatory one game. The statement announcing this said it was “for a breach of article 14.1.e (serious foul play) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code”.Madibo has played 64 times for Qatar and has never previously been sent off at international level, which rules out the idea that his previous conduct was a factor. The Athletic asked FIFA if there were any other reasons for the decision, but they added nothing beyond that short statement.Madibo can appeal the decision, and although The Athletic asked the Qatar team whether they intended to do that, at the time of writing they had not responded.While the majority of the available sympathy should be directed towards Kone, who had surgery on the tibia and fibula break and will miss the remainder of the tournament, plus probably a decent portion of the next domestic season, it’s also impossible not to feel pretty sorry for Madibo too.Because this feels like a remarkable overreaction by FIFA, and you can only conclude that the severity of the punishment is largely based on the extent of the injury, not the severity of or intent behind the challenge.Even Marsch, who was obviously and understandably furious at the time, admitted after the game that he didn’t think “he meant such a gruesome situation…I don’t fault him for that.”Madibo went into the Canada dressing room after the game to apologise, and he later visited Kone in hospital. The Canadian player was pictured hugging Madibo, so it seems fairly evident that there is no significant ill will towards him.Admittedly, FIFA cannot necessarily make disciplinary decisions based on the sentiment of the opponents, but this is simply to illustrate that, even from the perspective of those wronged by Madibo’s foul, there is an acceptance that he didn’t intend to break Kone’s leg, or even really hurt him.Ismael Kone was taken straight to hospital where he underwent surgery (REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian)The laws of the game state that a challenge is deemed to be “serious foul play” if it “uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent”. You could argue that if a challenge is strong enough to break someone’s leg, by definition the force is excessive. Which is fine: maybe a red card was an appropriate decision, and FIFA’s laws say that “serious foul play” merits at least a two-match ban. Perhaps if you want to send a message that this sort of thing won’t be tolerated then you can add a further game to the suspension.But a five-game ban? That’s pretty absurd, and there have been challenges that appear far more reckless in other games: as I type this, Brazil right-back Danilo has just taken out Scotland’s Kieran Tierney at shin height with a fairly horrible-looking challenge, but Tierney got up quickly and just a yellow card was issued.It smacks of FIFA trying to make an example of a relatively low-profile player that they knew wouldn’t be a factor in the remainder of the tournament. Even though the decision was made before Qatar’s elimination was confirmed, they were never going to trouble the latter stages of the tournament.It seems especially unfair given FIFA’s… flexibility when it comes to other suspension lengths at this World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo should theoretically have missed the first two games of the tournament after being sent off against Ireland last year, while both Nicolas Otamendi and Moises Caicedo were dismissed in their country’s final qualifiers, but had their one-game suspensions waved.Madibo’s team-mate Tarek Salman benefited from this amnesty too, but wasn’t selected in Qatar’s final squad.This was done, according to FIFA, to ensure all teams “can compete with their strongest possible squads on the biggest stage of men’s international football.”That obviously isn’t a consideration with Madibo. He served one game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and assuming it is not reduced on appeal, the rest will have nothing to do with this World Cup. Not quite so much FIFA’s immediate problem.Ultimately, Madibo committed a reasonably bad foul and got unlucky: similar fouls have happened without the consequences being so dire, for both the tackler and the tackled.Hopefully Qatar will appeal and the decision will be reversed. But as things stand, FIFA have reacted to the outcome of an incident, rather than the incident itself.