We’ve all seen it before in football: a contentious decision is given out on the pitch and players from the ‘wronged’ team swarm around the referee, letting the whistle-blower know exactly what they think about them. And yet, when you watch a game of rugby, there is almost a sense of gentlemanly calm about how the match officials and players communicate with one another.
There is a reason for that: rugby union has a rule in which only the team’s captain is allowed to speak to the referee. It is an idea that has won plenty of fans the world over, so it is no surprise that football trialled a similar concept in 2023. Considered a success, the idea that only a team’s captain could converse with the referee was rolled out in a major tournament for the first time at EURO 2024 – with staggering results.
Yellow Peril
Just to recap: any player that tries to communicate with the referee, other than the captain, can be booked if they speak in an aggressive or abusive way. It’s a ruling the saw a remarkable increase in the number of yellow cards being shown at EURO 2024: in the group stage alone, 166 bookings were made. In the entirety of EURO 2020, 151 players are cautioned with only 98 of those coming during the group phase.
There were also the incredible scenes that played out in the game between Turkey and the Czech Republic: a staggering 18 cards were shown, including four to non-playing substitutes who had attempted to converse with the referee.
All told, the number of yellow cards shown for dissent in the group phase of EURO 2024 was double that of the 2020 edition – proving that referees were only too happy to caution those who flouted the new rule, with players not yet accustomed to holding their tongue at flashpoints during the game.
At the start of the 2023/24 season, referees were told to be stricter in enforcing the rules around player dissent – by December 2023, the number of yellows shown in the Premier League more than trebled from 24 during the same period of 2022/23 to 80. All told, the numbers of cautions for dissent rose from 966 to 1,813 in the EPL, EFL, National League and WSL. The idea is that the new captain-only rule should see those numbers fall….
Roll Out
UEFA has deemed this pilot scheme of the rule a complete success – so much so, they have confirmed that it will be rolled out to their club competitions (Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League) during the 2024/24 season. The governing body’s director of refereeing, Roberto Rosetti, has spoken of the overwhelming positivity of the new ruling.
The referees are giving information to the captains, who are responding in a very positive way. For the other players, it’s easier: they don’t go to the referee, they don’t mob the referee, so this is something that’s extremely positive for football.
I spoke with top players after the games and coaches. I wanted to know their feedback and everyone is happy.
Rosetti has also revealed that the heads of various national football associations had approached UEFA asking to implement the new legislation as well, so it wouldn’t be a shock if the rule is rolled out in domestic club competitions across Europe soon – including, perhaps, the Premier League and Football League.
Hopefully, the initiative will eventually roll down to the non-league and grassroots game in the UK, where disciplinary issues and acts of increasing violence are seeing the number of referees willing to take up the whistle falling.
Letter of the Law
IFAB, who act as football’s law-makers, have been carrying out a trial of the new ruling in low-key fashion in selected leagues around the world. They stated,
Decisions by referees and other match officials are regularly subjected to verbal and/or physical dissent and sometimes result in players running at the referee and surrounding or mobbing them.
This behaviour shows a lack of respect for the referee, harms the image of the game and can be intimidating and upsetting. It is a common reason given by match officials for resigning. Action is needed to reduce such behaviour and to protect referees.
The trial was considered to be a success in maintaining law and order and preventing the sort of mob behaviour of surrounding a referee, which always looks particularly ugly. In rugby union, match officials are expressly told that they ‘should not tolerate approaches from players other than the team captains’, with football now implementing the same policy verbatim.
‘Captain-Only Zone’
🚨NEW: Players at the EUROs have been told that only the captain will be allowed to speak to the referee during games.
Any other player who approaches the referee to complain will be instantly BOOKED. @TeleFootball #euro2024 pic.twitter.com/uZJwO1NNIv
— Madrid Zone (@theMadridZone) June 12, 2024
IFAB has called for what it has named a ‘captain-only zone’, a radius around the referee in which only the skipper is allowed to enter. This zone is said to extend to a four-metre circumference around the match officials – any player other than the captain that breaches the perimeter should be cautioned.
That allows for the doors of communication between a referee and the captain to be opened, who can now discuss key decisions without the mob mentality preventing any meaningful dialogue from taking place.
The referee can explain their decision, and any VAR outcome that has happened behind closed doors, to the captain, who is then free to relay the information to their teammates. The captain can, politely, request clarification from the referee – without needing to call them a ‘cheat’ or any other abusive name under the sun.
Captain Responsible for Teammates
The ruling is also interesting as it makes a team’s captain responsible for the behaviour of their teammates – anyone other than the designated skipper will be booked for approaching a match official, so it falls to the captain to keep their colleagues in line.
An interesting caveat comes when a team’s captain is their goalkeeper. It would be nonsensical for them to run from their goal every time there’s a discussion to be had with the referee; in this scenario, an outfield player is ‘nominated’ as the individual allowed to speak to the match official.
