BRUGES, Belgium (AP) FIFA medical chief Michel D'Hooghe has a message for players at the World Cup in South Africa: You'll pay for those bone-crunching tackles.

D'Hooghe said yesterday that he plans to give referees plenty of instruction and warning, adding that a big event like the World Cup offers a chance to send the message that these kinds of tackles are unacceptable.

"We will specifically tell our referees and let everyone know" to use the red card as soon as a career-threatening foul is committed at the World Cup, D'Hooghe said.

Early this season, D'Hooghe produced a DVD of some of the worst fouls committed in recent years to convince national federations to curb violent play. Nevertheless, it has continued and D'Hooghe doesn't want it to spill over into the World Cup.

"I took action after four or five serious incidents in a row," he told The Associated Press at his medical office in western Belgium.

One of the fouls was from the Belgian league when Standard Liege midfielder Axel Witsel snapped both bones in the right leg of Poland international defender Marcin Wasilewski in a grudge match against Anderlecht.

D'Hooghe is hoping his campaign will match the success he had combatting facial injuries ahead of the last World Cup in Germany.

The 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan saw no less than a dozen serious facial injuries from elbows, often flying in anger and with callous determination. When Germany came around in 2006, the medical staff at FIFA campaigned to make the elbow to the face an automatic red card.