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Exeter rugby director Rob Baxter has urged football\u2019s law-makers to be careful after they agreed that sin-bins should be trialled at higher levels of the sport.<\/p>\n
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has supported the move following a successful implementation in the grassroots game.<\/p>\n
Temporary dismissals of players for offences such as dissent and specific tactical fouls were backed by IFAB at its annual business meeting.<\/p>\n
Sin-bins have been used in rugby for more than 20 years, and they were introduced across all levels of grassroots football from the 2019-20 season in an attempt to improve levels of respect and fair play in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be honest with you, I am very surprised football are doing it,\u201d said Baxter, who is one of the English game\u2019s most respected voices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit surprised when football went to VAR, and I am not sure how much they realised they were letting the genie out of the bottle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are meddlers in sport, and rugby is the worst of the lot. We have actually realised we want less TMO (television match official) intervention, the international game is saying we need less TMO intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the commentators and ex-professional footballers are saying we need way less VAR interference, and if it does happen it has to happen quickly and the crowd need to know what it is about because it is just causing mayhem in big games.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you start the process it is very hard to stop tinkering with it. They are tinkering with it all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that football has always had as its strength is that everyone can explain the rules within five minutes to your average new supporter and they will get it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy advice to football would be just be careful. Do you think you genuinely need it to improve player behaviour?<\/p>\n
Introducing yellow cards and removing players from the pitch is something I would be very careful of<\/p>\n
\u201cOr do penalties, free-kicks and yellow cards as they stand, which can escalate to reds for a double yellow, have they got the sanctions already within their game to control player behaviour and they just haven\u2019t been using them?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what I see in football. They have got the sanctions available in their game, so use them. For player abuse you only need to do it in one or two games and things change very quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntroducing yellow cards and removing players from the pitch is something I would be very careful of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baxter warned against the danger of quick fixes, and believes rugby has had its share of problems in this area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been guilty of starting processes without thinking about the repercussions,\u201d he added. \u201cWe think they are quick-fixed, and actually are they?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big debate on the football radio this morning was to get rid of VAR completely because they don\u2019t want two-minute stoppages while someone decides if it was a handball or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought that into rugby and realise we\u2019ve pushed it to the Nth degree. You have got to be careful with the card thing.<\/p>\n
We’ve gone through the period of realising that taking players off the pitch at every available opportunity is not necessarily the way to create a good game<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you start to say that taking players off the pitch is your way of controlling player behaviour, you\u2019ve got to be careful about when you want to limit it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought it in the right way because it was for repeat infringements on the whole. It was something that was required in rugby to stop repeat, repeat, repeats in a cynical way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone through the period of realising that taking players off the pitch at every available opportunity is not necessarily the way to create a good game.\u201d<\/p>\n