Substitution (sport)
event in sports match
In team sports, substitution (or interchange) is replacing one player with another during a match. Substitute players that are not in the starting lineup (also known as bench players, backups, interchange, or reserves) reside on the bench and are available to substitute for a starter. Later in the match, that substitute may be substituted for by another substitute or by a starter who is currently on the bench.
Free substitution or rolling substitution is a rule in some sports that allows players to enter and leave the game for other players many times during the course of a game, generally during a time-out or other break in live play; and for coaches to bring in and take out players an unlimited number of times. In other sports, limited substitution restricts the manner in which players can be replaced.
Sports that allow free substitution
Sports that allow unlimited substitution during live play
Beach soccer, futsal and indoor soccer: Unlike standard association football, these variants of the sport allow for an unlimited number of substitutions during a match. Players may be substituted at any time, except for the goalkeeper, who may only be substituted during a stoppage in play. In beach soccer, if a player is dismissed due to a red card, they may be replaced after at least two minutes has elapsed. In futsal and indoor soccer, if a player is dismissed due to a red card, they may not be replaced and their team will be short-handed for the rest of the match.
Canoe polo: Per ICF rules, players may be substituted at any time, however players who have capsized may not be substituted until the next break in play, unless the capsized player is still able to make it back to the substitution area unaided.
“Substitution (sport)” enters the record as event in sports match. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Substitution, sport and event can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q124810867. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Substitution (sport)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.