Sir,We read with interest, the editorial on “World cup football…in the theatres now, everyday” in the July 2014 issue of JOACP. We would like to congratulate Dr. Rakhi Goyal for her apt comparison of our daily work in the operation theatre with the world cup football match.[1]We would like to add some points to it. The period just before the start of the football match referred to as the “kick-off period” can be equivalent to the preoperative or preinduction period and the “kick-off” can be equivalent to the induction of anesthesia.[2]The players in football have to abide by the rules officially referred to as the laws of the game.[3] Similarly, we anesthesiologists have to abide by several rules and recommendations like American Society of Anesthesiologists recommendations, Association of Anesthesiologists of Great Britain and Ireland guidelines, institutional protocols, American Society of Testing and Materials recommendations for instruments etc. Failure to abide by the rules of the football game (fouls, misconduct, etc.) can result in penalties like penalty kicks, showing of yellow and red cards, etc. Similarly, failure, to abide by the standard recommendations, can lead us anesthesiologists to face consequences like patientdeath, morbidity and troublesome legal action.Pele, Maradona, Messi and Ronaldo are some of the world's best soccer players.[4] Similarly, anesthesia has pioneers like W.T.G. Morton, John Snow, Sir Ivan Magill, Robert Macintosh and many others. The only difference is that a football match always has a referee. However, we do not have a referee in our operation theatres. One cannot help but wonder “can our conscience be a referee in the operation theatres?”