“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is a suggestion not taken by FIFA in recent years. Soccer has seen new rules, concepts, and technologies being introduced all the time, most recently: Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was announced in 2018 and it was put in place to help referees when making big decisions in a game. In 2020, following Covid19, FIFA allowed teams to make five substitutions per game instead of three to allow teams to rotate their squads and help protect players from injury and fatigue throughout the season with the increase of games. Now, FIFA has introduced the blue card or a “sin-bin” rule which will give players a ten minute suspension from a game every time they are carded. Initially, players were given either a yellow or a red card for fouls. A yellow card was one level below a red, usually it was for small fouls, time wasting, or talking back to the referee. A red card was either two yellows in one game or if a player committed a horrible tackle. A blue card can be upgraded to a red if two were handed out in a game, or if a player was given one blue and one yellow. Blue cards are set to be put into a trial in the lower tiers of professional soccer, it is unknown when/whether the system will be put into place in the bigger leagues around the world.
There have been a few concerns over the new rule, the media and fans believe that the blue card is not really different from a player getting a yellow card, and others feel that the yellow-red system is working well already. This is not the first time FIFA has introduced a controversial system. VAR has been in the game for six years now and the software is yet to be perfected, the system usually slows down the game whenever there is an offsides call the refs need to double check, the system double checks every goal, and red-card worthy foul. A lot of fans are even asking for VAR to be taken out of the game as a result of the constant stopping of games.
Where can the blue cards concept go wrong/cause confusion? Here are my main concerns: One, will this not just slow down games? Players commit a lot of little fouls that are not deemed as “yellow card offenses” by refs. Assuming that blue cards are meant to minimize those fouls, it seems that players will be constantly leaving and returning onto the field every few minutes. Two, how many players can be put into a sin bin per team? Can one team have more than one player penalized or is it a one at a time situation? Three, and this is my main concern, will this rule take away the physical nature of soccer? All sports need physicality, but if every little foul will now be penalized, will it not discourage players from getting rough? Nobody wants to watch a game of soccer where everyone avoids each other from fear of getting ejected.
So why add blue cards in soccer? Could this be another money-making scheme from FIFA, or is the organization just trying to modernize the game? Based on the medias’ concerns and mine above, it seems the blue cards are causing confusion. If applied correctly, the blue cards could be a good addition, but as I stated with VAR, FIFA does not have a good track record with applying new concepts properly. Until we see how the blue cards work in games there is no way of telling, however, it is clear that change is coming to the world’s most coveted sport.
Freshman Golnar Jalinous is a contributing writer. Her email is gjalinou@fandm.edu