There will be no blue cards shown in soccer, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has declared ahead of the annual meeting of the sport’s rule-making panel.
The rules body IFAB later extended trials of “sin bins” at low-level and youth games, but beyond that, the idea of adding blue cards to referees’ pockets with their red and yellow to remove players from the field for several minutes was scrapped.
“Let me be clear — it’s a red card to the idea of ‘blue’ cards,” Infantino told reporters in a video clip posted overnight on his Instagram account.
“There will not be any blue cards used at elite level.”
Arriving late on Friday at a lakeside hotel which hosted the meeting near Glasgow, Infantino added: “This is a topic that is non-existent for us and FIFA is completely opposed to blue cards.”
Infantino did not attend the post-meeting news conference on Saturday and has not taken questions at a formal media event since before FIFA picked preferred candidates five months ago for the men’s World Cups in 2030 and 2034.
Sin bins were introduced in grassroots soccer in the 2019-20 season to try to reduce dissent and increase fair play.
The idea has been unpopular with English Premier League coaches who believe teams will use defensive and negative tactics if a player is removed for 10 minutes.
However, the new suggestion of using blue cards to send players to sin bins was met with widespread derision.
The IFAB panel said in extending sin bin trials “any potential wider application will only be considered once the impact of these changes have been reviewed.”
Seeking to improve player behaviour, the panel approved trials in professional competitions “below the top two tiers” to let only captains approach the referee and cooling-off periods that let the referee send both teams to their own penalty area.
“It’s much better to get it right away from the pressures of the cameras and the fan,” English soccer federation chief executive Mark Bullingham said.