'I was a Premier League ref who dealt with Roy Keane - blue cards are nonsense'
Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has slammed the idea of blue cards being introduced - and believes officials need to manage the game properly instead.
Football lawmakers IFAB are discussing the possibility of launching sin bins and blue cards into the game, which could see players sit out 10 minutes of action for cynical fouls or displays of dissent. It would be the most notable change since red and yellow cards at the 1970 World Cup. The idea has been widely criticised.
FIFA were keen to inform on Thursday that blue cards would not be used at the elite level initially. The FA confirmed in 2019 that sin bins were being trialled at grassroots level. The idea of blue cards has since been criticised by ex-Premier League official Halsey, who retired in 2013 after a 14-year top-flight career.
Halsey told The Sun : "The idea to introduce blue cards into football is nonsense. Trials in amateur and youth games in both England and Wales saw referees have the power to send players off the pitch for 10 minutes for dissent or denying a promising attack.
"But I'd like to know what the full protocol will be because I have major doubts. Firstly, I don't see a difference between a current yellow card and this new blue card?
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"Yellow cards are already used as a warning to players that if they persist with misconduct then further punishment will follow. So what's the difference? We don't need blue cards if officials manage the game properly in its current form. I never showed many yellow cards for dissent throughout my career because one of the main jobs of a referee is to have control and man-manage the players on the pitch."
During his career, Halsey refereed the likes of Roy Keane, John Terry and Gary Neville - who were all big personalities and often liked to have a word with the officials. Halsey had to manage those types of players on a regular basis and he believes bringing in blue cards would practically tell referees they can't handle organising players.
He then suggested the idea of officials communicating and building relationships with players on the pitch in an attempt to reduce the level of dissent instead. A FA study in December showed that the number of players booked for dissent had increased by 88 per cent compared to the same stage last season, though there was a 37 per cent decrease in charges for surrounding a match official.
Referees could be given the option of handing out blue cards to send a player to the sin bin (Getty)Meanwhile, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp criticised the blue card idea in his pre-match press conference on Friday and could not help swing a dig at the PGMOL. He said: "I think everything what the actual situation shows is we should keep it as simple as somehow possible, for the referees as well.
"It’s a difficult job, often quite emotional when we speak about it more so because it’s after the game, and I think the introduction of a blue card would just give more opportunities to fail as well because the discussion will be: ‘It was a blue card, should it have been a yellow card, now it’s 10 minutes off, in the good old times it would have been a red card or only a yellow’.
"These kind of things just make it more complicated. If they want to test it I have no problem with testing if that’s the first step to agreeing or it already being sure it will happen – I don’t know that."
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