Whilst someone with a time machine flying forward to 2025 might be astonished at the speed and technical ability of modern-day football, as well as flummoxed by the likes of the offside rule, they would still be able to recognise the sport.
That is because football hasn’t changed a huge amount over the years, with 11 people on either side and the aim being to score more goals than the opposition. Even so, there have been some strange rules brought in from time to time, to say nothing of the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee that we have all become used to.
What Was the Blue Card?
In February of 2024, it was confirmed that the International Football Association Board, the body that decides upon the various rules that are used, would be trialling the use of blue cards in the upper levels of the sport. They were to be used for when a player committed a cynical foul or showed dissent towards the referee, at which point a blue card would be issued and a player would have to disappear off to the ‘sin-bin’ for a period of 10 minutes. They were to be used in conjunction with red and yellow cards, as opposed to being brought in to replace either of the standard cards.
@dailymailsport 🚨 BLUE cards are set to be trialled in professional football 🟦 #referee #football #rules #cards #bluecard #anthonytaylor #PGMOL #facup #premierleague #manchesterunited #manutd #mufc #fyp #dailymail #dailymailsport ♬ original sound – Daily Mail Sport
A player shown two blue cards during a match would be dismissed for the rest of the game, whilst the blue card would also result in a sending off if a player received a yellow card. The cards were originally trialled in amateur and youth football, with an agreement reached in the November of 2023 that it might be worth expanding that trial. FIFA didn’t like the idea, saying that trying to bring them in was ‘premature’ and that trials should only be carried out at ‘lower levels’. The Football Association, meanwhile, considered trialling them in the FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup.
Confusion Over the Card Reigned
If you wanted to get a sense of how the wider footballing world felt about blue cards, it could be found in the conflicting reports around whether or not they were going to be used in the senior game. No sooner had reports around the IFAB trial emerged in the February, the BBC reported that they were not going to expand the trial the following month. Then, in the March of 2025, TNT Sports published an article stating that blue cards were going to be introduced into the game at a senior level. The confusion was likely sparked by Gianni Infantino’s extreme opposition to the idea.
If they introduce “10 minute sin bin” blue cards into football/soccer for cynical fouls, it will only increase cynical fouls.
It could work well for punishing dissent, except it’ll become 9 vs 8 for some of the match!
— Mark F (@markfreemymind.bsky.social) 9 February 2024 at 22:11
Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board early in 2024, he said that ‘there will not be any blue cards used at elite level’ and that the topic was ‘non-existent’ for FIFA. He said, “FIFA is completely opposed to blue cards. I was not aware of this topic, the president of FIFA, and I think FIFA has a say in IFAB. If you want a title, it is red card to the blue card.” The fear, in Infantino’s eyes, was that it would ‘damage the traditions of the game’ and that ‘we have to be serious’ when it comes to the ideas around how to improve the rules of the sport.
Not the Only Time a Different Card Has Been Used
If you thought that football has been fiddled with enough, you would probably be right. When blue cards were being discussed, Jürgen Klopp and Ange Postecoglou both came out in opposition, with the overall feeling being that it presented referees with ‘more opportunities to fail’. It isn’t the first time that referees have been asked to carry a card other than the traditional yellow or red one during a match, however. In the January of 2023, for example, history was made during a game between Sporting Lisbon and Benfica, two Portuguese sides, when a white card was shown by the match referee.
The white card was introduced in Portugal as part of some new initiatives that the country brought in in an attempt to ‘improve ethical value’ across football. Whilst yellow and red cards are used in order to discipline players, white cards were brought in to reflect good sportsmanship. It recognised fair play, being shown in the Portuguese equivalent of the Women’s FA Cup when someone fell ill in the stands and the two teams’ medical department acted quickly in order to help them. There were a record number of people in the crowd for a women’s game in the country, which reacted positively to the card.