By Vince Rugari
From the people who brought you the wildly popular VAR system, and the completely straightforward and universally understood new handball interpretation, comes another rule change which risks pulling further at the frayed and distressed fabric of the beautiful game.
Blue cards are coming to a soccer match near you, and we’re not talking about the police check you need to coach your kid’s team on the weekend.
Socceroo Aiden O’Neill is given his marching orders at the Asian Cup.Credit: AP
When Europeans wake up on Friday morning, the International Football Association Board – the body which oversees the laws of the game – will reportedly announce a trial that could give referees another hue of PVC plastic or cardboard to brandish at players, a potential first addition to their arsenal of colours since yellow and red cards were introduced at the 1970 World Cup.
According to the UK Telegraph, a new blue card will sit in the ref’s pocket for use in situations where dissent has been shown against match officials, or when a promising attack has been ended by a cynical, so-called “professional foul”. A blue card means a 10-minute spell in the sin bin (the team’s technical area). Two blues, or one yellow and one blue, equals a red.
The backlash from fans across the world was so immediate and strong, FIFA was moved to clarify that it was “incorrect and premature” to suggest the blue card would be trialled at the elite level next season, even though the Telegraph claimed that England’s Football Association was prepared to offer the men’s and women’s FA Cups as guinea pigs. If a trial occurs, FIFA says, it should only happen at the lower levels of the game, as it will table at next month’s IFAB annual general meeting when the idea could be passed.
Sin bins have already been trialled at grassroots level in some countries, including Australia, to some degree of success. Football Australia’s head of referees Nathan Magill has observed a positive change since “temporary dismissals” were implemented and sees the blue card as a logical progression, at least at that level.
Could rugby league-style sin bins be coming to football?Credit: Getty
“The blue card could serve as an educational mechanism for players, parents, and coaches, which is a common challenge for community match officials,” he told this masthead. “It’s the goal of Football Australia to enhance the experience of community match officials. As such, we are open to exploring options that can assist referees in managing the game effectively. To that end, we are developing a series of initiatives for this community football season to enhance the match environment for all involved.”
IFAB’s primary motivation is to improve player behaviour and reduce abuse, and the table was set for tinkering with the rules in November, when a range of potential measures were discussed to battle what FIFA’s referees boss Pierluigi Collina says is a “cancer” that could kill football. Among them was adopting the rugby union method of allowing only a team’s captain to approach the referee.
Seeing a group of angry players surround the referee to contest a controversial decision or non-decision has become a ghastly sight in football – but there appears to be little insight among the game’s leaders as to why it has worsened recently. The introduction of the VAR introduced an avenue for the game to be re-refereed and therefore a stronger basis for players to argue their case, while tweaks to the handball rule have led to widespread confusion over what constitutes an offence. Referees are caught in a bind, reluctant to dish out yellow cards for dissent for fear of mass send-offs ruining the spectacle and inviting even further disagreement, but unable to do anything else.
Off the field, the treatment of referees is worsening. There was a high-profile case of a referee being assaulted in Sydney last year. Less than two months ago in Turkey’s Super Lig, a club’s chairman ran onto the field after the final whistle and punched a referee in the face. In the A-League, Western Sydney Wanderers coach Marko Rudan is facing a hefty sanction for a thunderous rant against the state of refereeing and an alleged “stigma” affecting his side. At the Asian Cup, the Australian-Iranian referee Alireza Faghani was doxxed and targeted with hundreds of thousands of abusive messages on social media after showing a second yellow card to an Iraqi player for an excessive celebration. Iraq then lost grip on the match to fall 3-2 to eventual finalists Jordan.
Meanwhile, there have been continuous shouts from the grassroots about refereeing shortages, and any attempts through educational programs to promote a culture of respect towards match officials appear to have failed miserably. In a working-class sport played everywhere on the planet, this is not so much a matter of cleaning up behaviour but overcoming human nature itself.
There appears to be no appetite at the top level for any further adjustments to the rules, and plenty of scepticism about the practicalities around 10-minute punishments.
Ange Postecoglou is one such critic, but he senses inevitability in the air.
“Bin it mate, bin the whole idea,” the Tottenham Hotspur manager said in December when asked about the potential for sin bins in football.
“Just forget about it. I don’t know why they [IFAB] keep interjecting themselves into the game. There’s not that much wrong with the game. I think once they throw an idea like that out, it usually means they’ve already tested the waters. I don’t think there’s a need for it. I think you’re seeing a lot more dissent in the game these days because there’s more a lot more people to dissent to: in the past it was just the referee but [now] you can dissent to the fourth official, you can dissent to the VAR, you can dissent the head of referees.
“It used to be simple. The authority was with the referee, and he could handle it himself. I just don’t think we need to mess with the game too much, but it is what it is.”
IFAB is made up of the four UK associations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who each have one vote – and FIFA, which has four votes. Six votes are needed to pass any changes to the laws of the game.
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