In football they will introduce a blue card, for which they will be sent off for 10 minutes: here’s how it works

The head of UEFA spoke out against the inno­va­tion, and fans are threat­en­ing to boy­cott match­es if the ref­er­ees have a card of a new col­or.

There will be a new penal­ty in foot­ball — a blue card. Hav­ing received it, the play­er will be forced to leave the field for 10 min­utes. Accord­ing to The Tele­graph, such inno­va­tions have already been approved by the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil of Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tions.

Ini­tial­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion con­sid­ered a dif­fer­ent col­or for the card — for exam­ple, orange, but in the end the choice was made in favor of blue. The media report that if a play­er is shown two blue cards dur­ing a match, it will be the same as a red card — mean­ing he will be forced to leave the field for good. In addi­tion, he will be removed if he receives a com­bi­na­tion of yel­low and blue cards.

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It is planned that the blue card will be test­ed first in wom­en’s and youth foot­ball, as well as in low­er league match­es. This could hap­pen in the sum­mer of 2024: the Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion of Eng­land has expressed its readi­ness to begin the exper­i­ment from next sea­son.

Why will they give you a blue card?

The Tele­graph writes that a play­er may get a blue card if he com­mits the fol­low­ing vio­la­tions:

  • a tac­ti­cal foul that will deprive the oppo­nent of a promis­ing attack;
  • man­i­fes­ta­tion of dis­agree­ment with the deci­sions of the arbi­tra­tor.

An exam­ple of a moment for which a blue card could be giv­en is an inci­dent in the final match of Euro 2020 between the nation­al teams of Italy and Eng­land. Then Ital­ian defend­er Gior­gio Chielli­ni tried to stop Bukayo Saka in order to dis­rupt his break­through into a coun­ter­at­tack, and almost tore his T‑shirt. Then Chielli­ni was giv­en a yel­low card, but accord­ing to the pro­posed rules, he would have left the field for 10 min­utes, leav­ing his team in the minor­i­ty.

Who opposed the blue card

FIFA said that the issue of intro­duc­ing a blue card will be con­sid­ered at the gen­er­al meet­ing of the asso­ci­a­tion, sched­uled for March 2. In a state­ment, the orga­ni­za­tion said there had been media reports sug­gest­ing the immi­nent intro­duc­tion of this inno­va­tion at elite foot­ball lev­el, but that they were “incor­rect and pre­ma­ture.”

Mean­while, UEFA head Alek­sander Čeferin opposed the intro­duc­tion of blue cards, say­ing that such pun­ish­ments have noth­ing to do with foot­ball.

Foot­ball fans are also rebelling against the ini­tia­tive. It is expect­ed that in the near future the ultras of the largest Euro­pean clubs will make a state­ment that they will begin to dis­rupt and boy­cott match­es if the ref­er­ees have cards of a new col­or.