A blue card is set to be introduced in professional football in a major shake-up of officiating rules.
According to The Telegraph, the measure was approved as part of the sin-bin trials by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which is in charge of the game’s laws. Confirmation is anticipated on Friday.
If players act cynically or show disobedient behavior toward officials, they will be given a blue card and placed in the sin bin for ten minutes.
Top-tier competitions are unlikely to be included in the initial testing, but trials may start this summer, and the FA is thinking of offering the FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup for next season’s testing.
The only times the blue card would be used are for dissent or to stop a potentially dangerous attack. A sending-off would happen if there were two blue cards in a match or if there were both blue and yellow cards.
Giorgio Chiellini pulling Bukayo Saka’s shirt during the Euro 2020 final is one instance that the IFAB brought up. Under the new rules, this foul would have resulted in ten minutes in the sin bin for Chiellini.
However, Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, has confirmed that sin-bins will not be introduced for the European Championship this summer or next season’s Champions League, stating: “It’s not football anymore.”
There have already been successful trials in amateur and youth football in England and Wales, with it now set to follow in the senior game.
To encourage fair play, the National Plan for Ethics in Sport in Portugal instituted the use of the “white card.”
One was shown in the fifth division last year when a player kicked the ball out of play rather than running through on goal when an opposition defender went down injured.
During a women’s match between Sporting Lisbon and Benfica, the medical staff was also given a white card after attending to a fan who had passed out in the stands.
