Blue cards, sin-bins and captain-only zones: New football trials explained

Football's lawmakers Ifab are set to announce trials for sin-bins during matches whereby players will be shown a blue card and spend 10 minutes in the technical area.

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) is set to announce the new trials on Friday. Sin-bins have been trialled successfully at grassroots level and are now set to be tested higher up the football pyramid.

The trial phase will exclude top-level competitions like the Premier League and Champions League. This is to avoid confusion among players – for instance if their domestic league ran a trial but a continental competition they were involved in at the same time did not.

It is unclear at what level the trials would be introduced, if at all, in the Gulf or Mena region, but England's Premier League has already ruled out the trials being implemented in their competition.

World governing body Fifa said that reports of the ‘blue card’ at elite levels of football are "incorrect and premature”.

Ifab is scheduled to hold its annual meeting at Loch Lomond in Scotland in March and sin-bin trials at higher levels of the game are listed as a topic for discussion in the agenda.

The National understands referees will use blue cards to indicate a player must go to the sin-bin, much like a yellow card is shown in rugby. The criteria for committing a blue card offence includes dissent and tactical fouls.

An example of a tactical foul is Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini’s tug on England's Bukayo Saka in the Euro 2020 final.

Players will be ordered to go to the technical area for 10 minutes. If a player has already been booked, a blue card will mean they are sent off. Two blue cards will also result in dismissal.

The introduction of sin-bins and blue cards, should