FA to trial 'sin bin' system in grassroots football for 2017/18 season

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Tom Doyle3 May 2017

The Football Association plans to trial a 'sin bin' system in grassroots leagues next season.

The proposal relates only to players booked for dissent and will see them being subject to what the FA calls 'temporary dismissals', whereby they will leave the field for 10 minutes.

The governing body has invited grassroots leagues at step seven - the seventh tier of non-League football - and below to trial the system.

It says this will include a mixture of Saturday and Sunday, male, female, adult and youth leagues across the country and that there has already been over 60 leagues in support of the plan.

A statement from the FA on Wednesday said: "Following the decision of IFAB (the International Football Association Board) earlier this year to permit national associations the ability to implement changes in rules at grassroots level of the game, we have agreed to pilot the system in selected leagues for the duration of the 2017-18 season.

"With dissent accounting for 24 per cent of all cautions at grassroots level, the intention is to change the behaviour and impose an immediate sanction on the player."

The FA added that sin bin cautions will not attract the normal £10 administration fee that cautions for dissent currently do.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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