my post is deadly serious thanks. Pleading for act consistently as a collective regarding dissent is mute, as we are never going to be consistent on any aspect of the game, apart from of course offside which is factual and even then as we know, the decision will not be correct on every occasion
be honest, when did you last stop the game mid flow to administer a yellow card for dissent and award the idfk?
again, when did you last stop the game mid flow to award a red card and award the idfk? If you can recall when you did, roughly how often does it happen? The answer is very rare. So, given we don't utilise the control methods that we do have currently at our disposal, its entirely understandable to scoff at suggestions of what alternative tools might do.
There is totally no way no ref gets no dissent in a game, yet, to a man, we do not come out a game with 8 cautions for dissent. Varying levels of, yes, but, WE ignore it, from the live Sky games this weekend, to the council park number 9, (the one with the hill behind the goal and the ball runs into the stream every time).
You cant give lengthy bans, if you do, teams don't have enough players, which in turn means maybe no team that weekend, which in turn means less refs are needed. No players equal no team equal eventually, no league.
You cant give big fines, again, the teams need the money to exist, no money equal no team equal no league.
Vicious cycle.
what you can do is change society, which is for a different forum somewhere else on the interweb. Its a fact that referees globally turn a blind eye (or ear) to dissent. And by dong that, match officials take a large share of the blame. Players know what they can get away with, or expect too, because the guys before you have NOT DONE THEIR JOB.
You would be fully supported in lotg by getting to the min number of players in a game and abandoning. Who might wonder what on earth is going on, would be you rdo, and association. YOUR PEERS, as questions will be asked of you dealing firmly with dissent, why? because its not the done thing, your colleagues, associates, would be the ones to degrade you if it was your game abandonded 6 weeks on the trot due to not enough players to continue. Questions would be asked of your handling of dissent, not so much questions about the actual dissent itself!
we all cant wait to fire out the red if we even think we hear the word cheat. Anything else is far game it seems, we have made our own bed and now we sleep on it. (and of course I include myself firmly in any reference to all referees in this post!)