You can book someone for swearing if you believe it is “unsporting” (other or AA depending on the context) - a tough one to sell, because if you deem it to be offensive/insulting/abusive it does fall into the RC domain.
However, even in adult football I do address poor language (C***) mostly, and usually players get it. Usually a word with the player does calm industrial language down. Of course, if it is said towards someone, then they do risk further sanction, but as I said, usually a quick word to them and their skipper does the trick.
Back to the original post, I think that in hindsight it looks like a C2 (dissent) to me. In UK at grassroots level, that would be a 10 minute chill out (sin bin).
I do sometimes ‘not hear’ an immediate knee jerk reaction from players (as frustration and immediate reactions) can make them say something off the cuff (c word aimed at me will always will be bye bye for me); if they have time to think about it and it is a spiral of swearing and moaning, then I’ll deal with it.
Had one on Saturday - gave a penalty (easy decision). Away team disagree. Penalty scores and 2x of their players say well done ref and clap sarcastically. In this instance, it wasn’t a knee jerk reaction, and the dissent was so clear and obvious that they went down to 9 for 10 minutes - both were C2’d…. They had no argument or moaning about it.
I was told by an assessor not to be afraid of sin binning if it is warranted.
Well done for issuing a card for it, but as some have said, take your time when you give a caution to make sure you’re sure exactly what you’re cautioning them for.
I agree with
@Anubis with his caution procedure. The only time I’ll do otherwise is:
- a quick red card is needed to diffuse the situation
- sometimes for dissent a quick yc and pointing to the side will give the player a chance to not say anything else to get in trouble.
(Whenever possible though, I always try and take the player to one side, get their name and make sure they know exactly what and why they are being carded - that additional time tends to get heart rates down and calm situations down.
Sorry - I have really rambled!! Oops!