For as long as I can remember, football referees have got decisions wrong. As a consequence of this, players have gotten in the faces of referees and learn fairly soon on in their careers it is possible to influence the match officials by way of intimidation. Even some of the nation’s leading players, John Terry, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, have made a habit of treating the referee without any respect, and perhaps the iconic moment of the career of one of the Premier League’s most successful players, Roy Keane, was the ugly haranguing of referee Andy D’Urso during a game against Middlesbrough.
Throughout my life I’ve followed, and played, both Rugby Union and Football and it has always struck me as odd how differently the players behave towards officials in the respective games. Despite being a much more physical game, and being played by much larger, stronger, athletes, Rugby players have always shown a level of respect towards officials you don’t often see outside of a class room. It’s comparable to the first time you get really told off by a parent. “Yes, sorry ref, I’ll have a word with him”, they even sometimes, and often used to; call the referee “Sir”, like a child to a teacher. In contrast, I think the only time a footballer would refer to a match official as “sir” would be within a sentence similar to, “you sir, are a fucking wanker”. Why the gulf in respect shown?
People often refer to the fact rugby officials have it easier thanks to the use of video technology (what’s stopping football doing that, by the way? That’s for another time though), however they were shown this level of respect way before video technology was introduced. I can put it down to two things.
1. You are taught from youth level to respect the referee in Rugby and that only the captain should talk to them. They have tried this with football, it doesn’t work.
2. The sin-bin. They have not tried this with football. Would it work?
I think so. With one move, the authorities would immediately prevent being abusive and aggressive to officials from being worthwhile. The officials will know they have something better than a yellow card. A sin-binning is not as severe a punishment as a red card, but it is something which would really harm a players’ team if they were to step out of line.
There would, of course, be opposition to the idea. Pundits, football bodies, ex-footballers and players could complain that the system would interfere with the game, it being such a drastic change and all. I would argue it would be a tiny change with a worthwhile impact.
If you introduced sin-binning for dissent, it would not actually change the game much at all. Almost instantly, players would quit with the back chat as the impact it’d have on their team would be too big. Officials would suddenly have room to breathe and, hopefully, this would result in all round more accurate decision making as they would no longer fear the backlash of the players. At the same time, officials should be made to explain contentious decisions as they make them, and they could do this without being barked at. The harassing of officials is an ugly side of football, not part of Platini and Blatter’s “beautiful game”, and everyone should be a lot happier without it.
As such, sin-binning for disrespecting officials should not be opposed, but welcomed. Unfortunately, this may never be the case.
Sin binning/removing players from the field would lead to far more negative football in my view. Teams would be worried about keeping their defensive shape when going down to 10 men after a sin bin – and a team’s shape/formation is far more important and less flexible in football than it is in rugby.
Another problem is that referees are often wrong, and different refs make different decisions in different games, it is all very subjective. Thus the current system only allows them to remove a player and have a profound influence on the game in such a manner if there is an instance of serious foul play. Sin binning would put even more onus on the referee, and thus make them more liable to make mistakes. It would also increase player pressure on refs, as there would be more to be gained from an opposition player being sin binned than yellow carded.
Despite this I do see your argument for sin binning players who continously berate the ref and show dissent – a particularly ugly part of modern football. A punishment like this would cut it right out. Oh and rugby players are polite because it is a private school posh ra-ra-ra game don’t you know.
With regards to how a team would react to a sin-binning, I don’t think the effect of the punishment is relevant. One could say the same about sendings off. The aim of the proposal would be to stop players from verbally abusing referees, forcing them instead to just get on with the game. Once such a measure is in place, what a team does when a player is sin-binned is immaterial – the players simply wouldn’t commit the offence. It’s a deterrent. I think it’d work.
The increase in pressure on the referees is a good point, but I think it’s fair to say that all of us perform better at work without a sweaty thug screaming abuse in our face.
Besides, if Premier League Blog had its way we’d have video technology anyway!
Also, I did intend to make it clear in my article that the sin bin would be introduced ONLY for dissent, not for fouls or synical fouls. That is because, as you point out, refs get too many decisions wrong. Berating a ref is clear cut though, foul language or disrespect to an official and you’re off for 10. It would cut it out completely and instantly.
*cynical…
Ah… I rather took it to mean a broader application of sin binning. We are all rather in agreement then. Good show!
I agree with all points above apart from one, which is the claim by Chillitsphil that formation is more important in football than rugby
I would accept this is possibly the case in Rugby League, which by the way is a referee-polite game pioneered by northern commoners, pissing on the bonfire of the widely held quasi-theory “rugby being polite reflects the class that traditionally play it”. This lack of structure is due to its fast flowing nature, quick turnover rates and the relative physical similarity of its players, regardless of position.
However in Rugby Union, the need for constant positional awareness and team structure is vital, for several reasons.
The way in which the defensive side narrows their opponent’s options is through careful formation, with the aim being to channel them into defensive positions of strength where the chance of winning the ball back is greater.
Secondly, the great physical differences between players mean that the wrong man in the wrong position can be critical. A prop can not do a winger’s job and vice versa.
This all leads to the point that the sin bin in rugby is as big as it would be in football. When rugby teams are a man down for 10 minutes they really feel the burn. A competent attacking team can usually exploit their extra man by spreading the play as wide as possible, creating overlaps and 2 on 1′s, which usually lead to tries. Also, I personally believe rugby is a more physically demanding sport than football, due to tackling, endlessly driving another man out of the way while he tries his best to stop you, 18 stone men standing on you etc. To this end, losing a player for 10 mins really tires the team for the rest of the game and the earlier the sin bin occurs the greater effect it will have as play goes on.
So introduce the sin bin in football so far I say.
However, the difficult thing to square in this debate is the point scoring difference, with a goal equalling 1 point at all times and a converted try equalling 7 points. Rugby is obviously a free scoring game, in which a team would never settle on defending a 2 point advantage. How does this scoring difference affect the introduction of the sin bin? First of all, it would make football players more likely to avoid it, in case they concede 1 goal whilst ‘binned’. True it would make the diminished team ultra defensive, but this would be corrected once they were back up to full strength, with the punished team’s incentive now to attack and redress the balance.
If the bin was solely for abusive acts which do not amount to red card offences, a player can never blame anyone but themselves. No one made them intimidate the ref, shout abuse etc. This would obviously require the continuation of the yellow card in full. Even more brilliantly, an opposition player would have no method of trying to trick the referee into sin binning an opponent under this stipulation, other than “I heard him call you a prick ref” type shenanigans.
Fucking hell, what an essay!
TL:DR – Sin Bin = Good.