Yellow Card, Red Card, Blue Card?
The idea of a sin bin blue card has been discussed by FIFA, but would this be a good thing for football?
Comments (2)|6 Liked It
Yellow card, red card…blue card? Fifa recently discussed whether football should adopt a rugby style ’sin bin’ form of punishment after the Irish FA said they wanted to gage opinion on:
“the possibility of using ’sin bins’ for players guilty of breaches of the laws of the game, currently resulting in the administration of a yellow card.”
This implies replacing the current yellow card with a blue card, that instead of acting as just a warning would end up with the player being sent off for five minutes. Though Fifa voted aginst the introduction, you can be assured that the idea won’t go away. But could such an idea actually work in the often heated game of football?
If sin bins were introduced then they would impact massively and immediately. There are very few Premier League games, or indeed football games, that don’t end up with at least one yellow card by the time it’s finished. Newcastle and Sunderland’s last derby for example ended up with six. To replace the yellow card with a blue card would mean that pretty much every Premier League game would end up with at least one player being sent off for five minutes. On a small scale if there were only a maximum of two (at a push three) bookings a match then it could work. The disruption to the game wouldn’t be so much that it would ruin the contest, and it could actually clean the game by making players try harder to not get booked. This is why it works for rugby. When you look at football however and not only the number of yellow cards but more importantly at the manner of yellow cards, then you’ve got a problem.
It has become customary now for players to get booked for taking their shirts off after scoring. Football is a passionate game and sometimes players get so overwhelmed that they can’t help themselves. Five minutes in the sin bin. The other team go right up the other end, use their one player advantage and gets an instant equaliser. Just rewards? A referee books a goalkeeper for taking too long to take a goal kick. Five minutes in the sin bin…oops no goalkeeper. A defender pulls off a world-class tackle and knocks the ball from the forward, however the referee doesn’t see it properly and books the defender. Five minutes in the sin bin. The opposition team now have a dangerous free kick and one less defender to deal with. The list could quite easily go on.
Would replacing yellow cards with blue cards work? No, in fact it would be a catastrophe. Referees would quit through the overwhelming extra pressure put on them. What could work however is using blue cards as a separate punishment. Bookings for dissent for example are often infuriating and result from a player getting too worked up and needing to calm down. Instead of giving a second yellow card resulting in them being banned from later matches, why not send them to a sin bin for five minutes? They regain their composure, get back on the field and game on. Not only would it spare the player, it would ease pressure off the referee by giving them an extra option. Win win.
The blue card doesn’t have to change the game, it can just make things easier.
Other articles by Adam Daley include:
Top 20 Young English Players Under 20
Futsal: The saviour of English Football?
Could A Move To Arsenal Be Exactly What Micah Richards Needs?
With Football Shirt Sponsorship Becoming Harder to Come By Could Custom Shirts Act as an Alternative
2 Comments
Well guy you raise a lot of interesting points, I would suggest that you voice your opinions to the powers that be; as for me personally, sure players get involved in the heat of the moment however, as in basketball and football, they know that when they do something wrong they will either get a technical, a flag thrown or thrown out of the game. There are rules for a reason and these players need to learn to follow the rules or suffer the consequences.
I think you have it spot on here. This kind of common sense is totally lacking in the chiefs at FIFA. Perhaps the blue card could work as an option instead of a second yellow card. Two bookable offences could result in a ‘blue card’ and a period in the sin bin. Two innocuous fouls, or a stupid handball like Ronaldo’s in the Manchester derby would not see the player dismissed. However tackles such as Kevin Nolan’s on Everton’s Victor Anichebe would still be punishable by a straight red.