By Samuel A. February 11, 2024
The International Football Association Board [IFAB] have published the detailed ideas for sin-bin trials in professional football. The IFAB is expected to include a provision for blue cards. In the trials, referees will have the power to send players off for 10 minutes for dissent or cynical fouls. Two blue cards would result in the player’s dismissal for the rest of the match, as would a blue and a yellow card.
IFAB is set to give the go ahead for the extended sin-bin trials in senior levels of the game at its annual meeting in March. There have already been trials in amateur and youth football in both England and Wales and the sport’s lawmaking body agreed in November last year that they should be implemented at higher levels of football. Board members had also supported a proposed trial whereby only the team captain may approach the referee in certain major game situations.
On the other hand, FIFA called blue cards in elite football “premature” and said “any trials, if implemented, should be limited to testing in a responsible manner at lower levels”.
According to reports, The Football Association will consider trialing sin bins in the FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup next season. However, sin bins will not be used at either this summer’s European championship in Germany, or in next season’s UEFA Champions League after UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin revealed in January that he was completely opposed to them, saying: “It’s not football anymore.”
One example given of a blue card during Thursday’s IFAB meeting was from the Euro 2020 final Italy centre back Giorgio Chiellini’s shirt pull on England forward Bukayo Saka which only resulted in a yellow card.
Board member Mark Bullingham, the chief executive of the Football Association, said: “When we were looking at sin bins , protocol clearly has to be developed. The areas we were looking at were dissent, where it’s worked very, very well in the grassroots game in England. We’ve also spoken about other areas, particularly tactical fouls. I think frustration for fans watching games when they see a promising counter attack that’s ruined by that and the question of whether a yellow card is sufficient for that has led to us looking at whether that should be involved in the protocol as well. The starting point was looking at player behaviour and dissent – we’re then looking at whether we should extend it into other areas, such as tactical fouls, as well.”
