Sin bins were piloted in 2018-19 and led to the Football Association reporting a 38% total reduction in dissent across 31 leagues.

They were then introduced across all levels of grassroots football from the 2019-20 season in an attempt to to improve levels of respect and fair play.

The rule change was then implemented up to step five of the National League system and tier three and below in women’s football.

This echoes my experience of them in grassroots 11 a side and sanctioned small sided football (in 5-7 a side they are two minutes).

I don’t see why they wouldn’t also work in professional football.

At grassroots level they have the big advantage of not having to deal with all the paperwork and admin of fining players.

One example I’ve seen them used quite well in is where you have a handbags at dawn type scenario with a bit of a melee and some pushing and shoving. A sin bin each for the two main antagonists tends to calm the game down without needing such drastic action as a red card.

The key thing about sim binning is it SHOULD make it harder for a referee to fuck up.

This is because there’s a huge difference between a yellow card and a red card both in terms of what warrants one and also the consequences. The addition of a sim bin makes this difference smaller

More things for city to get away with. Things being at the referees discretion isn’t going to go well. Especially something like this

So give the ref’s another tool to dictate the flow/outcome of games. What could go wrong.

No thanks