Are The Rules-Makers Ruining Football?
Angus and Ben are joined by CBS Reporter James Benge and FIFA Referee -- and rules analyst -- Christina Unkel to debate the future of Blue Cards and the state of rule implimentation in football.
Transcript
hello and welcome to this week's debrief I'm anger Scott the transfer window has long closed but there's still plenty of news to come from Fabrizio Romano Fab the world's transfer Guru is with us later with news on the am bppe Saga and Connor Gallagher's future from Arab to ifab that little known footballing body that seems to do everything it can to change the game and not necessarily for the better well now on the cards as it were to add to the yellow and red ones they have is a blue one and this time it's a sin bin a 10 minutes spell on the naughty step For Those who commit a cynical foul or tell the referee what they really think of him or her so out of the blue do we get some Blue Sky Thinking or has ifab just muddied the waters and threatened to implement the worst change to football since the BBC updated their social media policies for presenters well that's what we are debating today are the lawmakers ruining footall Ben Jacobs is here Ben hello good to see you that was your best intro yet thank you thank you took me a bit of time but you know you get get a bit of color in there and everything else uh you've got some material to work with also with us today two returning faces to the debrief Christina Uncle our resident FIFA referee hi up hello thanks for having me great on the color commentary considering all we're going to be talking about as colors today yeah I think you're right uh and James benj is here CBS correspondent based in North London um but with the world at his feet I feel like I'm going to offer infinitely less to this conversation than anyone else but I'm delighted to join and if I'm if you're not happy with me blue cards red cards whatever C well I think I think I'm done I'm empty carded now I think I've got I've got nothing more right um let's start with you Christin Ina look ifab have debated this they came up with this idea sort of back end of last year didn't they then they had their um annual general meeting and then they've come up with the idea that yeah we'll we'll expand it a little bit but what are they intending to expand tell us yeah so they've already done some trials and clinicals um in youth competitions so I actually was a bit surprised at how much anger and explosion came out of nowhere especially since it was two days after the agenda items had been announced by ifab as to what was going to be uh portrayed and here what is the important part that many kind of just overlooked quickly is that this is still in trial mode so the presentation and kind of where we're at now next with the trials of the sin bin the trials of the blue card is just that it's still in trial mode to see whether or not it does benefit and add to football also known as the product when we're talking about keeping the ball in play that is one of their biggest things is how much more time can we keep the ball in play other other laws that have impacted this is like the men's World Cup when they were adding 13 14 15 minutes in it right the focus is how do we keep the ball in play how do we have more attacking football and how do we generate more goals and don't essentially um reward those who are not making football plays so two things yes still in trial mode yes they'll only be considering it and doing trial modes in more senior um competitions and matches not yet rolled out to see if it makes sense but secondly most importantly and the other point I think everyone's getting lost is what is a cynical foul um once people understand what a cynical foul is I think that will make everyone feel more comfortable with what the purpose of the sin bins and the blue card are supposed to essentially attain in hit okay well let's get into that definition let's get in fact actually before we all start let's have a vote who's who's in favor of blue cards I am in favor of trying them I want see yes okay Christina and and James are saying yes Ben do I take it you're saying no I'm saying one refs would need Bigger Pockets and two a more strict definition and maybe even a different color but I'm not against trying them but just the devil's advocate I'm GNA decide to go against Christina and James I agree we got two we got two NOS two yeses right so that let's see where we are at the end of this um podcast but Christina you going to get into the specifics let's get a definition of what a cynical foul is yeah so cynical foul isn't found necessarily in the laws of the game but it's found in essentially the commentary what we say is you know kind of the football clarifications for us internally when we talk about the applications the consider ation so for officials for over the past easily two to three years cynical fou forus is essentially a non-football play when we talk about and there was the example given of you know when it is a player who has essentially beaten another player is in a promising attack and that Defender merely just takes the hand and grabs a shirt pulls them back whether it's an American World we call it a you know a collar tackle right um but essentially there is no attempt to play the ball in any manner shape or form Others May refer that to a professional foul others refer it as a tactical foul but in essence we all know what it is when we see it it's when the ball has crossed they're into an attacker phase they have no chance to win they know there's going to be advantages of maybe a three on two or momentum and so that Defender commits that foul to break up that stopping a promising attack that for us is considered cynical because there's no attempt to play the ball you can't play the ball with your hands and it's merely just to disrupt the game and for thus that is a definition of what a cynical foul is we all know it when we see it it usually happens on the Outer Banks near the touchline and it always happens when there is a quick Counterattack play yeah yeah we we've all seen it we all know it and we all go oh that's a cynical foul doesn't matter where it is on the pitch if it's breaking up that passage of play um we we want it stopped but is the blue card the right answer anyway James your gut feeling is is you want to see it happen I'd like to to see it tried because I mean what I know is that the one of the things that drives me most mad when I watch a football match is when these promising counters the way we were just talking about when we know where that cynical foul is that they're just they're just cut out because the punishment doesn't fit the crime you are bursting free on goal or you are you know it's a three on two Counterattack I I think we all agree that's football we love to see you know when those moves get executed perfectly and no one in this sport uh can ever blame you know picking a name entirely at random not because I think he's got a reputation for doing it uh rodri uh when he hauls down an opponent just as they're threatening to get away and and get a rare attack on City because you know we all know a yellow card there is absolutely the right thing to do you don't want to give up a high value shot at goal or an you know have to make that tackle later and potentially give up a penalty you take the yellow card you take the free kick and you know that you know football being what it is I think it's something like Christina correct if I'm wrong only about two% of yellow cards are followed by a second yellow so you always have to take statistic um so I I want to see what we can do to stop that you know I think there's always the law of unintended consequences on this if if the risk is a sin bin and and 10 10 minutes when you're down a player do we just see more cautious football do teams put like three or four players back when they're defend when they're attacking Corners because they're scared of getting countered and scared of getting sinb bined is that 10 minutes of sin bined football completely unwatchable I know Angus you you'll know about the rugby side of this as well it can sometimes be a a slug and a scrap can't it and you know that the team that's down to 14 will be like we're taking this game Into The Trenches we're doing everything we can to turn it into 10 minutes of unwatchable sport yeah I think so know no no I sort of agree yeah we don't know what's going to happen and I agree to a certain extent but if you look at I I think what I would love to do is to be able to compare rugby with football and but I genuinely don't think we can because um the you the the numerical advantage of having 15 against 14 in rugby far outweighs yeah 11 versus 10 in football and I from my my perspective I think you just get 10 minutes of shocking football and I I think we've seen enough 11 versus 10 um in in football that produces absolutely nothing and you could have uh 80 minutes um if someone sent off in the first 10 and you got 80 minutes of 11 against 10 and you still don't get any decent football out of it in rugby it would far uh outweigh the advantage being uh having 15 to 14 and then we would see you you're expected to score points when a rugby team has a numerical Su Supremacy you will not naturally be scoring in goals when a football team has that Supremacy and there in lines the difference and I I ultimately think that that um I wouldn't be worried if I had a blue card pink card red card you know not a red card but you know a brown card whatever color card it was but it meant that you that you had 10 minutes off the pitch I don't think it would make absolutely a slightest bit of difference um and I think it's a complete waste of time Ben I think first of all we have to respect the definitions second of all we have to remember that football is a fluid moving game and therefore if it's stopped and started and reviewed based on these new definitions for a potential simin that can be a complicating factor I see nothing wrong in theory with the ability for two yellows to be a simin or alternatively to not change the color of cards and still simbin somebody so we have to think about Simplicity in keeping the game flowing would for example we don't know yet a simin be V reviewable or in any way appealable and I think the downside will be time related the upside will be a decline in descent which we've seen at Grassroots levels during the trial of the blue card and that is a positive for sure and obviously these things we get used to because every new generation comes up learning about the rules in real time so it's very easy to dismiss it now much like the Passback rule or even V and in 10 15 years realize how did we ever live without a simin and I think that for those that are frustrated by sendings off the simin is potentially a middle ground as well so there's a lot to like I think the thing that intrigues me the most though James maybe to you because you kind of touched upon it a moment ago is less the rules and the card and the color Christina's area and more the repercussions and I'm fascinated by this notion of simin forces urgency where aside that simind probably doesn't make a substitution at that point because they know the players coming on in 10 minutes but the other side almost enters into an ice hockey type power play where five minutes into the game they potentially go who we' up to park the bus and get a goal on the Counterattack and now five minutes into the game we've got 10 minutes where we can go more gung-ho and you have to adapt so the thing that fascinates me the most is not actually the rules ramifications but the Tactical ones and and I think they're the ones that you can really have the least grasp on until you dive in and to be frank you at some stage you know when I say we should try this I do mean it's going to have to go to higher level than youth football than Grassroots football because you know the level of tactical complexity like I want to see how Pep Guardiola approaches having one of his players sin bin you know I was talking to um one of my colleagues about what do managers do in in this scenario so I mean let's say that one of your players get sin bined in the 60th minute do you take off your Winger to bring on a fullback and then when that fullback that's been s your fullback is sbin and when he's done his sin bin does he come back on the pitch do you sort of you know is it almost like a substitution a tactical opportunity to sort of meld around and and not quite try different things because you're having to be reactive but you know with so many of these things there are sort of laws of unintended consequences and and I I tend to find with football rule laws specifically that what we would expect to happen is almost immediately countered so it was very obvious even when arson vinger spoke about let's change the offside rules so that it's it's daylight or whatever he wanted to term it behind um the defender for aord to be off offside it was obvious immediately that that that would bring about more defensive football now how the sin bin works I honestly have no idea well actually I have one thing I'm really intrigued by though that Christina might be able to answer knowing the people that know make these decisions why on Earth is it a blue card because a blue card I I mean you might not know blue card is where I have at Cafe Nero to get stamped for my free coffee oh okay I'm going to learn more about that um no so the blue card the color in and of itself right could have been various colors but it's very distinguishable and going back to I think what Ben had alluded to is this communication side of it if we were to give two yellow cards how do we let people know that's not a two yellow card red card or it's a two yellow card sin bin card without as verbalizing it and then that turns into complexities if you have a very clear color that is very distinguishable from naturally yellow and red immediately everyone's going to understand what the what the what the implications are right the 10minute um timeout and then the power play for lack of a better term um what we kind of really need to tie in and so that's why it's a blue card it's just very distinguishable it's going to pop compared to the rest of the other two cards so it's a communication thing um but importantly kind I don't see this as impacting the game very much in the beginning yes because kind of Ben as you mentioned and as we know it's right now as part of football is these professional tactical fouls of pulling someone in a stopping promising attack but that's the whole point I know at one point in Major League Soccer we were in the middle of the season and the statistics were about on average 15 yellow cards on a weekend of play were all Associated to cynical fouls and pulling individuals down so clearly footballing is saying we're okay with these we are going to take it so we're not eliminating it from the game by giving yellows I've seen that quite a bit just give a yellow we are giving a yellow and it's not it's not curving these types of actions and the whole point of officiating the whole point of giving cards is to prevent players or to continue those types of behaviors and it's not doing that and that's why the blue card has come around that's why this you know middle layer between yellow and red cards has arisen because right now what is happening isn't working and I do feel like in the beginning when people are getting blue cards I can't wait for the day when the person goes to grab someone and then just pulls their hand back recognizing that they're going to be sitting out for 10 minutes and all of a sudden it's going to be St it's going to start stamping out of people's minds not to pull back that's going to happen and that's going to happen very quickly so we may see more sin bins initially but after I think it'll eliminate this play and that's the whole point of this we won't be sitting here saying every game we're gonna have a sin bin or every other game maybe in the beginning as they mentally get used to it but soon it'll start eliminating that tactic in in its entirety it's interesting because obviously in basketball the whole point is you use the fouls that you're given and it's part of the game in football the cynical fouls get punished and I don't think we'll ever get to a scenario where you're allowed a cynical foul and then if you've done one then you get blue carded I think it's all or nothing it's a simin or ultimately you don't do it but my question Christina and it can only be speculative I know at this stage but I'd love to get your perspective before we go to Fabrizio Romano number one do you sense in this Middle Ground type punishment and card that V can get involved and number two in a simin where would a player go yes so I I love that because that second question actually had a really good debate with Aaron on it uh Aaron West but the first part is uh do I believe V will be involved in this protocol my answer is no and here's why once you know the V protocol and what it's supposed to correct and fix which I know there's debate as to whether or not is actually being implied uh globally around this respect is it's supposed to fix uh key match incidents gain critical decisions errors that 99.9% of the football Community is going to accept as an erir the hand of God into the back of the goal that but for V could the officiating team see right um here because the punishment doesn't rise through the complete removal of a player yes I know there's debate about if this happens in the 86 minute you know that would eliminate them from the game but because it's not a direct red card because it is not um a play that can in impact the um a key match incident or a game critical decision I don't believe and nor should V be involved in decisions on cynical fouls because we all know what it looks like you all know what it looks like it will be very clear it's either going to be kind of going back to your point Ben it's all or nothing either this is going to be defined as a blue cynical card or it's going to be no foul whatsoever and no card was or a simple foul right but no card whatsoever associated with it it's going to be like offside it's going to be a bit more black and white and for that reason V should not get involved um it would cause a lot more chaos it would delay the time defeats the whole point of the introduction of the blue card um sorry what was the second question oh where do they go um so this is kind of where like my debate well some people are like oh it's going to be centrally this is what they're testing out should that be centrally located in between um in between the technical areas uh and it's 10 minutes so the question that was proposed to me is will that increase the risk of injury for players who are standing there for 10 minutes and watching and I thought that was probably one of the biggest issues that need to be reviewed even though when people come out at halftime they've been sitting around for 15 20 minutes right there's a little bit of a warm up and then they go back into the game so I think that's kind of the biggest ones and if that's the case if we need to continue to focus on the players staying warm so that there's no increase in injuries because of this most likely the place would have to be somewhere aligned along a touch line so that the individuals could continue to warm up along the touch line so that has not yet fully been determined um in some of the trials it was in between the technical benches uh but I do think there needs to be a little bit more analysis as to where it's going to be placed just so that players can continue to stay warm and prevent injuries in that time period yeah look the the rugby players do the same don't they they sit on a bike put a big coat on and they're all right and these guys are you know 150 kilos compared to you know the the little wimpy footballers who are you know 80 or 90 kilos those little soft yes exactly I've got my Rugby head on at this time of year but they do they sit on a bike