Eyebrows above the cynical eyes of football fans around the world were raised when Luis Figo revealed his proposals as to how he plans on improving the beautiful game.
One such idea from the FIFA presidential candidate is the introduction of the sin bin to football.
The notion divides opinion among supporters as purists argue the sending of players to the sin bin would slow down the flow of games while others would suppose that the launch of a sin bin rule would help reduce the amount of dissent and other unsportsmanlike behaviour in the game.
But the regulation is already being used in the Under 16 Development Tournament, a competition in which the Irish U16s are taking part.
And head coach Tom O’Connor revealed how the system works.
“Instead of a yellow card, a player would leave the pitch for eight minutes because we only play for forty minutes,” O’Connor said. “And after the player’s eight minutes are up, the player gets back onto the pitch.”
The experiment in rule changes is in effect for its second year of the tournament and O’Connor revealed that officials are really starting to embrace the new approach.
“On the first go, they [referees] were very reluctant to put a player off whereas in this particular instance, they’re enforcing it a bit more stringently.”
The method is based on the rugby model whereby it’s possible to have more than one player in the sin bin at one time.
“In one of the games, they had two of the players sin-binned which meant they were down to nine men. From a coach’s point of view, that would be difficult.”
Similar to the way that a prop or hooker can be replaced in rugby when they receive a yellow card, there are different circumstances for goalkeepers who are sent to the sin bin.
“In our first match against Austria, they had to change their ‘keeper because the rules are a little bit different for them,” O’Connor said.
In terms of tactics, the Ireland U16 manager also revealed how he saw different managers adapting to the rules.
“The Danish lads were very reluctant to tackle because of the rules whereas I just told our players to make their tackles as they usually would and, if it’s a yellow card, then so be it.
“In the game against Denmark, we were down to ten men for 18 minutes because we lost two players.”
“But whenever we did go down to ten men, we’d just move to a 4-4-1, which we had planned. The same way you would if you had a man sent off.”
The danger obviously exists that the fast-paced nature of football could be lost with far more breaks in play, which is something that O’Connor also addressed.
“When you have players going off there was obviously more stoppages,” he said.
“And when you’re down to ten men, you want to run the clock down so you take your time. The goalkeeper takes his time with putting the ball back into play and there might have been an opportunity for the referees to get onto players for time-wasting.”
Where do you stand on the debate?
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