The blue-tiful game: are new cards the way to tackle football dissent?

Professional football may face one of the biggest rule changes in a generation with the introduction of "rugby-style" blue cards and sin bins.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the laws of the game, has signed off on the first new card to be used in the sport "since the advent of yellow and red cards at the 1970 World Cup", said The Telegraph.  

The "revolutionary move" will see players removed from the game for 10 minutes "if they commit a cynical foul or show dissent towards a match official", said the paper. The new blue card will be limited to "fouls that prevent a promising attack plus dissent" and will also mean that a player "should be shown a red card if they receive two blue cards during a match or a combination of yellow and blue". 

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'Crack down on dissent'

Top-tier competitions will not be included in the testing phase of this new rule in the professional game, in case the "protocols require further refinement", said The Telegraph, but elite trials "could still begin as soon as the summer".

In recent years, there has been a "real push" from authorities to "crack down" on dissent towards referees and officials, said 90 Min. Attitudes towards officials are "a problem at every level of the sport", but the blue card would "theoretically give referees something else to battle it with, which in turn acts as a deterrent".

Its use might encourage elite leagues, such as the Premier League, to "set a better example", former Liverpool great Graeme Souness wrote for Mail Online. The hope is that better behaviour "would filter down to the Sunday leagues, where some of the outrageous behaviour has included physical assaults on officials".

'Exercise in sporting madness'

Amid widespread "fury" over the plans, IFAB will discuss the introduction of blue cards and sin bins in further detail at its AGM next month, said Riath Al-Samarrai on Mail Online. But let's hope "this incessant tinkering and tweaking" with the rules of the game "is seen for the exercise in sporting madness that it is". 

The governing body's "heart is in the right place" with the proposed change, with dissent a "colossal part of football's refereeing crisis", Al-Samarrai added. But the introduction of blue cards "simply isn't needed". This season has "already seen an effort to clamp down on dissent and the referees are holding up their end".   

Football "is not beyond improvement," said Martin Samuel in The Sunday Times. "It just requires more thought, more consideration of consequence and fewer grey areas." 

The use of blue cards should be limited to dissent only, because conflating abuse of referees and the cynical foul would only lead to "alienation and confusion", said Samuel. "Every referee knows when he, or she, has been told to f*** off. And we can definitely do something about that. So start there. Just there."