FA give dreadful response to radical new plan as Leicester City brace for expected change

Football’s lawmakers will on Friday announce a trial for the use of sin bins in the game which will be signalled by the waving of a blue card.

Under the plans, to be initially trialled outside top-tier competitions, offenders will be removed from the field of play for 10 minutes if they commit a cynical foul typically stopping an attacking move or show dissent towards a match official.

While sin-bins will not be used at the European Championship finals in Germany, elite trials could still begin elsewhere as soon as the summer, according to the International Football Association Board (Ifab).

For the record, the referee will wave a blue card to signal a sin bin offence. However, a player will be shown a red card if they receive two blue cards during a match or a combination of yellow and blue.

So what do our football writers think of the plan? They have delivered their verdict…

John Townley

This is a dreadful idea and should never have been considered let alone introduced, oven on a trial footing. Football has been completely watered-down and it’s sad to see.

These days, fouls are given for minimal or no contact, and we’ve all seen players drop to the turf inside the box instead of trying to score. But the introduction of a blue card is a new low.

Nobody wants to see officials being verbally abused by players, and there should be a clamp down, but not in this way. Meanwhile, giving players sin-bins for cynical fouls is a pathetic idea. If it infringes on the ethos of the game, as so-called professional fouls have done for years, the offender deserves a red card, not some shilly-shallying like this.

There’s lots not to like about the modern game off the pitch, so why ruin the spectacle on it?

Keith Wales

Do the people who run football these days have an original thought in their heads? With a very few exceptions, it seems most rules changes we now see originate from other sports, and so it will be again with the new blue card sin bin sanction about to be announced by football’s rule-makers.

Sin bins originated with rugby league in Australia, and down the years have crossed codes to Union and been adopted by the likes of ice hockey, albeit with a different name, and handball to name but a few. But football is not rugby, of either persuasion, or any other sport. It has its own issues that need solving by its own unique rules.

The new protocol will limit use of the new card to fouls that prevent a promising attack plus dissent, while also confirming that a player should be shown a red card if they receive two blue cards during a match, or a combination of a yellow caution plus a blue. Confused? Imagine who referees will manage, especially with the vagaries of VAR already causing mayhem.

So rather than opting for new rules from other sports, let’s sort out the ones football already has – like a coherent policy on what constitutes handball, how far grappling in the penalty area can go before it sees a spot kick awarded, and a viable, working VAR system