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"Blue cards to be introduced for football sin-bins"

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ChrisBLD

New Member
Level 7 Referee
www.telegraph.co.uk

Blue cards to be introduced for football sin-bins

Exclusive: The new card will see players removed from the field for 10 minutes if they commit a cynical foul or show dissent
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
www.dailymail.co.uk

Football set to hand referees a BLUE CARD

A blue card is set to be introduced in professional football as part of sin-bin trials, marking the first new colour of card widely used in 50 years.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Creating a new thread as the existing discussion is buried within an existing thread discussing sin-bins in general.

Still just hearsay at the moment pending IFAB announcement. Some interesting snippets though:

The revolutionary move will be announced by Ifab as part of sin-bin protocols that will see players removed from the field for 10 minutes if they commit a cynical foul or show dissent towards a match official.
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SPA seems to be included as well as dissent.

Two blues equal a red
The new protocol announced on Friday will limit the new card to fouls that prevent a promising attack plus dissent, as well as confirming a player should be shown a red card if they receive two blue cards during a match or a combination of yellow and blue.
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Move away from confusing sin-bin matrices

As reported by Telegraph Sport, Ifab also approved a global trial of another rugby union rule that would see only team captains allowed to speak to the match referee about a decision.
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Potential other additions based on rugby rules?
 
The Ref Stop
Blue cards themselves should have been issued on day one.

Personally, this change should be one thing at a time. Do it just for sin bins, have everyone adapt to what is a hugely impactful rule change and then bring in SPA in the future. Doing both at the same time I guess is good for ‘one big hit’ but I think it’s a step too far as one change when we still haven’t got VAR right
 
First of all, if we’re going down the route of sin-bins, I’m a massive advocate of having a different coloured card. Using the yellow can cause communication mishaps in a sport which is not accustomed to the rule. I believe they’ve used the blue card in Wales (please correct me if I’m wrong), and it’s worked better?

Secondly, I’m all in favour of simplifying the jumble of rules that we have surrounding them now. Despite having used sin-bins for 4 years(?), I’m still not 100% sure that I could explain what happens for every combination of sin-bins and yellow cards.

However, I’m just not sure there’s enough evidence as it stands to show that they even actually work in the adult game. I think most referees are more reluctant to sin-bin than to show a yellow card, suggesting that although dissent numbers may be down, actual dissent on the pitch could be higher. As others have previously pointed out, it’s not always quite the deterrent that it should be. The threat of receiving a second yellow card is often much greater than being sin-binned, at a grassroots and lower level in particular from a financial perspective also.

I’m also slightly concerned about the use of sin-bins for SPA. I get what they’re trying to do, and for a very long time I’ve seen it as a potentially good idea, but it will require extreme care to implement. I think it’s likely to result in an almost complete rewrite of the law surrounding SPA, as the decision will be so subjective.
 
SammyT5 said:
First of all, if we’re going down the route of sin-bins, I’m a massive advocate of having a different coloured card. Using the yellow can cause communication mishaps in a sport which is not accustomed to the rule. I believe they’ve used the blue card in Wales (please correct me if I’m wrong), and it’s worked better?
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They haven't..it says in the article they wanted to but we're told no
 
JamesL said:
They haven't..it says in the article they wanted to but we're told no
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Bit of a u-turn then surely to introduce them now without having trialed on a smaller scale? The article is locked behind a paywall after the first few sentences so I didn’t catch that.
 
SammyT5 said:
Bit of a u-turn then surely to introduce them now without having trialed on a smaller scale? The article is locked behind a paywall after the first few sentences so I didn’t catch that.
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I dont subscribe and got the article.

It's going to be trialled outside elite comps 1st. Fa have offered fa cup.

Hopefully it comes in at step 3/4.
 
For all the comments, I think the blue card for SPA is a great thing. Too often (in the top level) we have seen teams trying to get the breakaway only for them to be deny by a cynical foul in the final few minutes, resulting in a YC and meaningless free kick. A SPA will now mean effectively dismissal from the game...

The only problem with this is time keeping, In Rugby, they stop the game clock so 10mins = 10 mins off the FOP. However, in football, only the officials know how long left. The clock in the stadium and on TV could say 82 mins, so all the fans are expecting the player to have gone completely, but there may be 5 added mins, so he would be able to come back for the final 3. This could cause more confusion and allegations of cheating if they come back for a couple of minutes and either score a goal or make a goal-saving challenge.
 
  1. Blue card - good idea. Anything to make it more obvious what the decision is
  2. Blue card for SPA - hmm. Will need very clear definition of SPA & can see a whole new section with the usual, and arguably unavoidable, grey areas. Also what happens in the case of a Reckless tackle that is also SPA ? At the moment I would code as reckless, because rightly or wrongly I see that as the 'more serious' offence. Would SPA now trump reckless ?
  3. Blue card in the professional game. In principle yes, but suddenly a dissent caution (or an SPA) becomes a potentially match changing incident. With the intense scrutiny at Premier League level in particular, current grumbles about inconsistency in application of dissent cautions become another rod to beat officials with. I can see that causing big problems and might lead us again down the 'needs more IFAB text' route, which is seldom a good thing IMHO
  4. Captains only to speak to referee - Not for me.
    1. Rugby is more like a game of football played by 6 year olds, where everyone follows the ball around the pitch. Football is different and we always have to think about what the most cynical teams will do to take advantage. Do we now have to wait 30 seconds at every restart whilst the keeper / left back trots 100 yards up the field to ask politely why his team didn't get the throw-in and then wait for him to trot back into position to restart ?
    2. I find talking to players, not just the captain, helps me with match control. I don't want to lose that tool in my armoury
 
Quarryref said:
Captains only to speak to referee - Not for me.
  1. Rugby is more like a game of football played by 6 year olds, where everyone follows the ball around the pitch. Football is different and we always have to think about what the most cynical teams will do to take advantage. Do we now have to wait 30 seconds at every restart whilst the keeper / left back trots 100 yards up the field to ask politely why his team didn't get the throw-in and then wait for him to trot back into position to restart ?
  2. I find talking to players, not just the captain, helps me with match control. I don't want to lose that tool in my armoury
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Fully agree with this. Think this was just a throwaway line at the end of the article, but I can't see this getting off the ground - it's too valuable for a ref's match control to cut off that communication and removes the personal touch to refereeing and managing individuals.
 
Alternative view incoming...
(Btw I don't disagree with your points but there are some pros to balance out the cons.)

Not being able to talk to the referee should reduce dissent. At minimum I will make it much easier to identify. Players should self manage themselves. There will still be times as referees we communicate with players but it would be when we choose, not at any given moment as it is now.

Sometimes, talking to the ref can be used as a deliberate tactic to distract and even when not deliberate, can detract from concentration. I know I have missed things in the past when having dialogue with a player.

I think it's at least worth a trial to see how it impacts participant behaviour/enjoyment. It always frustrates me as a neutral participant when teams are so busy going at the ref they don't play to their full potential so to remove their focus on the ref, by forbidding it should really actually have a positive affect on football on general
 
Quick question, which might not be answerable at this time:

If IFAB are introducing blue cards as part of sin-bin trials for professional football - will the existing implementation at grassroots->step 5 be changed to use blue cards too? Is there a world where this blue card usage is reserved for the professional game?
 
JamesL said:
Alternative view incoming...
(Btw I don't disagree with your points but there are some pros to balance out the cons.)

Not being able to talk to the referee should reduce dissent. At minimum I will make it much easier to identify. Players should self manage themselves. There will still be times as referees we communicate with players but it would be when we choose, not at any given moment as it is now.

Sometimes, talking to the ref can be used as a deliberate tactic to distract and even when not deliberate, can detract from concentration. I know I have missed things in the past when having dialogue with a player.

I think it's at least worth a trial to see how it impacts participant behaviour/enjoyment. It always frustrates me as a neutral participant when teams are so busy going at the ref they don't play to their full potential so to remove their focus on the ref, by forbidding it should really actually have a positive affect on football on general
Click to expand...
I don't hate the idea, but equally I don't know the following:

Will it increase the feeling that 'you can't talk to this referee, he's arrogant'

Secondly, if a player makes a small comment passing by will we get 'ref, he just spoke to you'. How do we define what constitutes talking to the ref?
 
I've had 15x SPA's and 4x Sin Bins in 25 middles this year
Those numbers will be fairly typical. Just thought I'd put them out there

Far too much change is occurring. I don't know what else to say really....
 
RefereeX said:
I don't hate the idea, but equally I don't know the following:

Will it increase the feeling that 'you can't talk to this referee, he's arrogant'

Secondly, if a player makes a small comment passing by will we get 'ref, he just spoke to you'. How do we define what constitutes talking to the ref?
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Yeah, agree completely.

Are we defining any talking to the ref as immediately unacceptable? In which case, are we expected to treat it as dissent and immediately sin bin whenever a non-captain appeals for a foul?

Or in reality, are we just supposed to go through the stepped process? In which case, it seems like a fairly semantic difference, and one that will only ever be applied inconsistently and therefore irritate more players.
 
JamesL said:
Alternative view incoming...
(Btw I don't disagree with your points but there are some pros to balance out the cons.)

Not being able to talk to the referee should reduce dissent. At minimum I will make it much easier to identify. Players should self manage themselves. There will still be times as referees we communicate with players but it would be when we choose, not at any given moment as it is now.

Sometimes, talking to the ref can be used as a deliberate tactic to distract and even when not deliberate, can detract from concentration. I know I have missed things in the past when having dialogue with a player.

I think it's at least worth a trial to see how it impacts participant behaviour/enjoyment. It always frustrates me as a neutral participant when teams are so busy going at the ref they don't play to their full potential so to remove their focus on the ref, by forbidding it should really actually have a positive affect on football on general
Click to expand...
Fair points.

I guess another practical issue for me is that rugby doesn't go straight to yellow card for talking out of turn to the referee. They have the 'march 10 metres forward' rule, which makes sense as a penalty in rugby in a way that doesn't really translate to football (as we have previously seen).

So even in a sport that starts from a completely different place on communication between players and the officials, they have a middle ground that is used much more often than the full sanction. Talk to referee = 10 minutes in the sin bin feels too blunt to me
 
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Keith Hackett speaking to 5 live:
"The reason behind that is that we appear to be changing the laws to accommodate weak and indecisive referee. Referees in the current laws at the elite level have the ability to caution someone for dissent and further dissent to issue a red card. They've also got a yellow card for stopping a promising attack. They put this under the banner of a cynical challenge, which is going to be introduced under the remit of a blue card and a ten minute delay."

Why is this guy insistent on hammering current referees? Any opportunity he gets. It's a tough enough gig with the criticism we get from outside of the community, we don't need it to come from those within or previously within the community, as it holds more gravitas.
 
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