The Dutch FA has announced measures to combat agression and violence in the lowe amateur leagues, starting next season. A player being yelllow carded will be sin binned for 10 minutes. This measure will not apply to the top amateur leagues nor the professional game but the FA will monitor progress and does not exclude introducing the same measure across the board.

This follows the measure introduced by the Dutch Hockey authorities where if a coach is yellow carded, then one of his players will sin binned also for 10 minutes.

Will other national associations follow suit? Is this the way forward ?

As everyone would have seen who watches footie on the telly there have been some blatant f**k ups by the match officials lately. I would make 4 calls -

1 Yes, the sin bin for any yellow card and 10 minutes sounds good.

2 A referee in each half of the park with responsibility for that half only.

3 Goal-line technology and

4 When a player is injured in an illegal tackle and is attended to on the pitch he has to go off which means the innocent team are penalised by having a man less and advantage is given to the offending team. I would like to see the guilty team have to send a man off until the injured man came back on.

Really like number 4 as an idea.

1. Sounds a good idea but may cause problems such as who keeps a record of the 10 minutes? if 3 get binned, does the ref have keep a note of all 3? Managers would be roaring to get their player back on. The principal isn't a bad idea but think it could cause more issues than it trys to resolve.

2. Even at Senior Level, don't think paying another match fee will please clubs,etc but again, the principal is a reasonable suggestion. Don't think it will ever take off.

3. Only the top leagues may consider this and you can bet that the clubs won't want to put there hand in their pockets for this. The only chance of this being seen in Scotland will be Champions League or Internationals. TV companies don't want it to get things right. They are just looking for a story. For every wrong decision, there's probably 100 correct but that don't make a headline!

4. Something I have wanted to see for years! Although if point 1 was implicated, the player committing the foul may well be cautioned and off for 10 mins anyway.

Officials can get it wrong but a vast majority of calls are right.



Very good post and thought provoking!

Number 4: Rugby style 'Blood replacement' for injured player until he is fit to return.

Just been reading that certain insiders are certain that roll on/roll off substitutions as in hockey is the next change in football. Personally, I think that this a bridge too far for the current blazer boys to agree to and accept.

Good to get constructive reply to my thoughts.

1 Sin bin in rugby and ice hockey - official at side responsible for sending players back on?

2 Just a thought to cut down on refs not keeping up with play. Looks like I'm advocating a few more officials but I think game would be improved and be fairer.

3 For sure football hierarchy would need to subsidise technology.

4 If player commiting foul is sent to sin bin, then for sure no need for his team to lose another player. If 'blood' style replacement substitute used then we would need to have possible substitutes warming up for the entire 90 min.

Funny, was just thinking about that tonight watching Italy v Brazil.

Another thing I think we should take from hockey is doing away with own goals. In hockey, the last player on the attacking side to touch the puck is the goalscorer. It can create one or two oddities once in a blue moon but for me it beats the constant squabbling over whether it's an own goal. Why we have to take goals away from people to credit them instead to a defender who doesn't want credited with them has always bamboozled me.

Another plus is we wouldn't need the likes of Gary Neville and that erse Redknapp on inflated salaries arguing about it. This alone makes it a winner for me.