The Football Association have persuaded FIFA to amend their controversial substitution limits that threatened to play havoc with pre-season friendlies, including Oxford United's.

Eyebrows were raised when United changed all 11 players in Saturday's 4-1 friendly win over Oxford City.

A new FIFA directive was introduced in February, stating that clubs could only make six substitutions during the course of a match after England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson fielded two entirely different teams in the friendly defeat to Australia last year.

The matter came to light when Saturday's pre-season warm-up between Fulham and Watford was abandoned at half-time by referee Peter Walton once both sides had exceeded the limit.

However, after two days of negotiations, the FA have managed to persuade FIFA president Sepp Blatter that unlimited substitutions are an essential component of any pre-season campaign and that their regulation, known as 'Sven's law', should not apply to club fixtures.

Ken Fry, the referee in charge of United's game on Saturday, says that he is pleased the authorities have seen sense, but added that he stood by his decision to let the game continue.

"I had not received any literature about the rule change, and as far as I was concerned, it applied to international matches rather than club friendlies," Fry said.

"Graham (Rix) was concerned about the fitness of his players, and said that he wanted to play two different teams - and I told him that he could do what he wanted.

"My opinion is that if I had paid £6 to come and see Oxford United's new signings, I would want to see them all play and not just a few.

"It's a joke law anyway, and it's all Sven's fault!" he quipped.

Rix was quick to praise Fry's decision to let him change his entire side.

"The referee was just using common sense," Rix said, a view shared by his City counterpart, Andy Sinnott.

"The referee got it right because the whole essence of pre-season is to give as many of your squad a game as possible," Sinnott added.