Yellow card for taking your shirt off, wtf?

[Orgoner]

Agree with all of that, especially the lameness of getting a yellow for taking your shirt off (and I suspect we might differ as to why it's so lame, but lame it certainly is!)

Don't care what happens to the player, and certainly not attempting to elicit sympathy, only to suggest that in the heat of the moment, I suspect we have all done "lame" things that had we the chance we would choose to undo. I stick by what I said regarding how better to influence player behaviour and improve the sportsmanship that should be shown by players to match officials (and each other), but its clear that we won't be going down the sin-bin route any time soon.

The (mostly) indoor games I cover allow clean substitutions on the fly (except for goalkeepers, where I need to be told before they happen) and, when I feel a player is rapidly getting to the point where they are annoying me enough to potentially get a yellow card, I usually tell them to substitute out and take a break.

It's then essentially their choice to do so (or not) and other players on the same team will usually make sure it happens as they know a yellow card won't be far behind otherwise.

For these indoor games, a yellow card means the designated player has to leave the field and the team plays short-handed for two minutes unless the other team scores in that time.

It works well for these six-a-side and 8-a-side games (not far off the sin bin idea?), but I have wondered how well it would scale up to the 11-a-side version.

[WTF11]

The (mostly) indoor games I cover allow clean substitutions on the fly (except for goalkeepers, where I need to be told before they happen) and, when I feel a player is rapidly getting to the point where they are annoying me enough to potentially get a yellow card, I usually tell them to substitute out and take a break.

It's then essentially their choice to do so (or not) and other players on the same team will usually make sure it happens as they know a yellow card won't be far behind otherwise.

For these indoor games, a yellow card means the designated player has to leave the field and the team plays short-handed for two minutes unless the other team scores in that time.

It works well for these six-a-side and 8-a-side games (not far off the sin bin idea?), but I have wondered how well it would scale up to the 11-a-side version.

Interesting. Don't see why it wouldn't work, but it would depend on the quality of the officials (something just about everyone in football suggest needs to be improved) as the "relationship" between players and refs would need to be a good deal less fractious that it often is at present, although simply introducing the concept of a sanction that would lead to a temporary reduction in player numbers might help that along. Maybe you should suggest it to the FA?

[Orgoner]

Interesting. Don't see why it wouldn't work, but it would depend on the quality of the officials (something just about everyone in football suggest needs to be improved) as the "relationship" between players and refs would need to be a good deal less fractious that it often is at present, although simply introducing the concept of a sanction that would lead to a temporary reduction in player numbers might help that along. Maybe you should suggest it to the FA?

I think this works for me as I've played with or against a fair number of the players involved in the past and, although it probably shouldn't help, everyone also knows I'm "not American" and so perhaps pay more heed to anything I might say or call. Silly sausages!

It's not uncommon for the referees here to have never played the game in any real capacity and so they often fail when it comes to situations where play should be allowed to continue and get all het up about trivial calls (which I suppose this shirt argument falls under!).

I actually enjoy refereeing, especially when it seems as if I've helped the game flow and not inserted myself into situations where I'm not needed. It certainly isn't for everyone though.