What is a blue card in football and how will sin-bins work?

Football is changing at a rapid rate in the modern age as VAR, expanded international tournaments, revamped UEFA competitions and now blue cards affect the beautiful game.

Referees have clamped down on dissent in the 2023/24 season, especially in the Premier League, and lawmakers at the International Football Association Board (IFAB) have now granted permission for the use of sin-bins in elite-level football.

The introduction of blue cards is the latest way in which football looks set to change, though it is not a brand new concept around the sporting world.

Here, we’ll aim to explain everything about blue cards and sin-bins in football, from timelines to examples in other sports.

A blue card is given for dissent and cynical fouls and results in a player spending ten minutes off the pitch in the ‘sin-bin’ while their team continues with an on-field disadvantage.

Referees have clamped down on player outbursts this season, with Diogo Dalot’s red card for Manchester United away at Liverpool a prime example. As for cynical fouls, dragging a player down to stop a counter-attack will result in a more serious blue card rather than a yellow.

In an IFAB meeting, one example of a cynical foul used was Giorgio Chiellini’s shirt pull on Bukayo Saka in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley. The Italian defender was shown a yellow card, but under the new rules, the referee would have been expected to give a blue card.

This measure has been introduced by The International Football Association Board (IFAB), who are announcing trials where referees will have the power to sin-bin players at the elite level.

IFAB is set to give the go-ahead for extended sin-bin trials in senior levels of the game at its annual meeting in March.

There is no concrete timeframe for when blue cards will be seen in the Premier League or top international tournaments, but with the annual meeting not until March, it is unlikely to be this season.

There has been a real push from authorities in recent years to crack down on dissent towards referees and officials. Attitudes towards officials are a problem at every level of the sport and the blue card would theoretically give referees something else to battle it with, which in turn acts as a deterrent.

Mark Bullingham, chief executive of the FA, said: “When we were looking at sin-bins – protocol…