Ange Postecoglou is far from impressed with the idea of trailing sin-bins in football, insisting the game would be destroyed if sides are regularly reduced to ten men.
International Football Association Board (IFAB) had proposed the idea of trailing a sin bin to combat poor player behaviour on the pitch, including cynical fouls and dissent aimed at referees.
According to reports, the initial idea is that players who engage in cynical fouling or express dissent towards referring decisions with receive a blue card, which would mean that they would cannot play any part in the game for ten minutes, with their side thus being temporarily being reduced to ten men (Sky Sports).
While trials for this new law are yet to be announced, the proposal has already garnered a frosty reception from those working in the game as well as from fans.
Postecoglou is not a fan of the blue card idea
Postecoglou has now given his two cents on the matter, insisting that the proposed remedy might end up fundamentally altering the nature of the game.
When asked about the blue card idea, the Australian told Football.London: “I don’t think so but there’s a remedy for that already. Show a yellow card or send someone off, it’s there in the rules. How much you tolerate is really up to you. Adding another one, what’s that going to do?
“Is it a degree of dissent? Or is it any dissent or magnitude of dissent? Is it what you say or what you do? the remedy is already there. If it’s not being enforced to the level at which people are satisfied then do that. That’s the change you need to make.
“I’m in a different space with where I think football’s at, but one team being down to 10 men for 10 minutes, you know what it’s going to do to our game? It’s going to destroy it mate.
“You’re going to have one team just sitting there trying to waste time for 10 minutes waiting for a guy to come on. Every other sport is trying to declutter. All we’re trying to do is go the other way for some bizarre reason.”
Postecoglou expressed his worries that all the stakeholders in the game are not being properly consulted before these sorts of changes are introduced, expressing his concern these modifications will alter the character of what is the most popular sport in the world.
He continued: “I guess it comes down to whoever we feel should be the custodians of the game, to protect the game. That’s always my fear. Who are the custodians? Are we talking about coaches and players?
“God forbid, it could be a journalist, somebody who just loves the game, understands our game and protects it, because if it just melds into what every other sport is we lose out. The reason this game is more popular than any other sport in the world is because you can get a ball, put two bags down as goals and away you go.
“I assume the governing bodies are the custodians at the moment, but what I’m talking about is the detail of it. When, for want of a better word, change presents itself, who is representing the game and are we getting enough of a cross-section of who we need to be?
“If you’re asking me how it currently works, I’ve got no idea, mate. I haven’t been in that space and dare I say it, I never will be. When I talk about those things, I’m just talking as a fan of the game. That’s all I’m saying. As a fan of the game, I’ve always loved the fact that for the most part, our game has remained untouched from my 40 years of experience in it.”
While the 58-year-old admitted that the rule changes that have been implemented historically have been good for the game, he questioned why there is suddenly a flurry of new rules being introduced.
The Spurs head coach added: “There have been some rule changes. I remember when I was playing I could pass it back to my goalkeeper and he could pick it up and throw it back to me and I’d pass it back to him and he’d pick it up again. You know what, they changed it. Why?
“Because they didn’t want to see the game slowing down, so it was a good decision. Let’s go with it and I don’t think anyone has complained about it. Other than that, there haven’t been too many shifts, but all of a sudden we’ve seen such a major transformation. We’ve let technology in the door, we know that’s going to affect it.
“Let’s just see how that plays out before we start thinking about other significant changes. What I guess I’m saying is, the conversation we’re having now, who is having those conversations? I don’t know. You might know better than me.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I understand the concerns that have been voiced about the introduction of the blue card and I am sympathetic to those concerns as a fan as we have to be careful not to change the complete character of the game that we all love. However, I would like to play devil’s advocate here as I also understand why the IFAB want to bring in this new rule.
Firstly, cynical fouls have got out of control over the past five years or so, with teams becoming smarter in taking turns to do it. A yellow card has proved an insufficient deterrent to stop them. These have a significant impact on the outcome as unlike other sports, football matches are often decided by just two or three big moments (usually goals).
With cynical fouls being used to stop the most threatening situations, we are arguably seeing two or three goals fewer over a ten-fixture gameweek, which has a huge impact on the competition. Further, the idea behind introducing blue cards is not to constantly reduce sides to ten men but rather to ensure teams stop making those types of cynical fouls, which would happen quite swiftly.
For example, the instruction of VAR has already reduced instances of completely ridiculous dives (which we saw a lot of a few years ago) and the decision to award more injury time has already reduced the amount of time wasted by players.
It is also worth pointing out that when the idea of red cards was introduced a few decades ago, there would have been ever more stringent resistance to change from those who were invested in the status quo and those working in the game would have made similar apocalyptic predictions.