10-minute time-out strikes the perfect balance between yellow and red

Game 3, 2021-22

The home team's number 7 is the key creative force in his side's central midfield. Just before half-time, with his team 2-0 down, he goes on a long run through the middle and then passes to a team-mate on the edge of the penalty area. The striker's shot is parried by the keeper, but the number 7 follows up and heads in the rebound. Half-time: 1-2. And what will happen during half-time, as sure as floods and fires in a twenty-first century summer? The away team's coach will tell his team's midfield and defence not to let that happen again. 

How to stop the number 7? Start fouling him every time he embarks on a dribble. Despite the opposition's best efforts, he often escapes with the ball anyway and I play advantage. The fouls that succeed are the tugs and obstructions, not quite enough for a yellow card until they accumulate to a persistent pattern of targeting this single player. It ends with the away team's number six going in way too hard, the number 7 goes down with a shout of pain (though he doesn't require treatment), and the home team and its fans are morally outraged. The tackle also thwarts a promising attack.

Yellow or red? I feel the foul deserves more than a yellow given its severity and location about 40 yards from goal, but that red for this particular player would be too harsh - he hasn't been dirty so far. In our state - on a trial basis for the next three years - we now have an alternative: the time penalty. So I send the number 6 off for a ten-minute spell on the bench. Only the player

protests, because according to his understanding of the new trial law, the time penalty is meant to replace the second yellow card. When I read the guidelines later, it turns out that he's possibly right. At the moment of the punishment, however, no one else on the away team protests, and the home team's transient apoplexy is assuaged by the Red Card Lite. No one's unhappy.

I also find out after the game that the time penalty doesn't apply to friendlies, and should only be enforced when league play starts in three weeks. That makes no sense to me. If you're introducing a significant law change, it's surely worth getting players and officials used to that new law before they start playing for points. 

The time penalty's already been in place in youth football here for years, except that it's only a five-minute penalty. And there's never been a problem when I've sent players straight to the bench for a cooling off without them first having seen a yellow. The guidelines for the adult version don't (yet) mention this possibility - they're focused on the second yellow being too harsh to merit a player's permanent expulsion from the game. I think this will work well when it comes to punishing dissent, for example, or time-wasting. However, a direct time-penalty without a previous yellow should definitely be allowed - I've used this in youth games when two players square up and start yelling at and/or pushing each other. The hope is that a five-minute chat with their coach while their team's down to ten men becomes the opportunity for a teachable moment about discipline and respect.

The number 6 comes to me after the game and very courteously asks for further clarification on his punishment. I explain the thinking behind my 'direct time-penalty', and he accepts that the decision was fair enough. "Your team was deliberately targeting the number 7," I say, "and I needed that to stop. Last season, I'd probably have shown you a red card. I thought your foul was borderline red today, but with the get-out clause of the time-penalty I could afford to be slightly more lenient." 

That doesn't alter the fact that I was wrong on at least one front: no time penalties in friendlies. And potentially wrong on a second: no time-penalty without a previous yellow card. On the latter, I'll be looking for clearer guidelines. In this case, although officially wrong, the punishment between yellow and red was nonetheless the perfect solution. 

Final score: 3-5 (4 x yellow, 1 x time penalty)

Want to read more? Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022.