Paul Rouse: Rulemakers need to stand their ground when backlash arrives

The following are the reasons already in place for getting a black card:

1. To deliberately pull down an opponent.

2. To deliberately trip an opponent with the hand, arm leg or foot.

3. To deliberately collide with an opponent after he has played the ball away or for the purpose of taking him out of the movement of play.

4. To remonstrate in an aggressive manner to match officials.

5. To threaten or to use abusive or provocative language or gestures to an opponent or teammate Under the new rules to be trialled in 2025, a black card will now also be issued to the third man (and everyone subsequently) who goes into a melee – “except where that player enters the melee and solely engages in the removal of a teammate.” 

This should be uncontroversial and relatively straightforward to manage.

What is important to note is that, according to the new rule, the very fact of entering the melee is considered to be contributing to it. A player does not have to do anything else to get a black card.

And the way to avoid the black card if you join the melee is to pull away a teammate.

The most important word in this respect is “solely”. Pulling away a teammate is not considered cover for any other contribution.

A second addition to the black card rules will see one issued to an underage player for dissent on the field, although in this instance the “offending player can be replaced immediately by a Temporary Substitute for the duration of the ten minutes.” 

The operation of this rule demands care by referees. There are quite a few referees who already show red cards at underage matches as if it is almost nothing. It is, nonetheless, quite a thing to send a child off the field. There are obvious instances where nobody could complain – indeed, a red card in the case of violent conduct, for example, is entirely justified.

But a certain amount of discretion is a valuable addition to the skills of a good referee at underage level. This should particularly apply to the issuing of red cards – and black ones.

It is the third addition to the list of black card offences that threatens to create deep controversy. This will see a black card awarded in the following scenario:

6. “To prevent or restrict, or to attempt to prevent or restrict, an opponent from moving or from playing the ball, by holding up an opponent.” What does “holding up an opponent” mean?

Presumably the intention is to penalise those players who cynically grab a player and hold on to him in the kind of scenario that would once have been described as “a professional foul”.

It is the type of cynicism that is routinely used to stop teams who wish to transition quickly and only when the player in possession is actually pulled to the ground has it resulted in a black card up to now.

There are at least two difficulties, however.

The first is to determine the category of 'holding up' that will result in a black card. This is likely to present significant difficulties. Indeed, it feels inevitable that referees will be accused of inconsistency, even within a single match, let alone in different matches refereed by the same person, or when the varied decisions of different referees are taken into account.

And there is nothing to inspire apoplexy quite like the perception of the inconsistent application of the rules: it is a small hop to accusing a referee of bias against a team.

A further difficulty relates to the second clause of the motion, which reads “to attempt to prevent or restrict an opponent”. It will be hard enough to decide when to sanction with a black card such 'holding up' as actually does take place; to add to the challenge the need to decide on an 'attempt' is a really big ask.

Again, perhaps all of this will become plain in the operation of the rules through the National League and then in championship football.

Realistically, the only way to measure the merit of all the changes – including the black card ones – is to expose them to the heat of competitive games, rather than to attempt to make judgements based on the lukewarm exhibitions that have taken place to date.

And in considering the impact of this new aspect of the rules, it is worth remembering that it has been deemed necessary to try them because of the epidemic of fouling that characterises so many matches after a team gets turned over in possession.

The basic truth is that across the country there are a legion of coaches who have coached players (adults and children) to foul their opponent high up the field in order to prevent a quick counterattack. As we all know, this foul is designed to allow a team to get their defensive shape back in place and to ensure that the opposition is restricted to attacks where speed is exceptionally difficult to generate.

It is one of the single most important factors in the descent of too many matches into tedium, and then into irritation.

Naturally, the same people who will be lamenting the decisions of referees who apply this new sanction of the black card are most likely be the very ones who either coached tactical fouling or lamented the naivety of the team that didn’t foul and were exposed instead to the quick transition.

A final point to be considered: the enabling motion which allowed for these trials essentially granted to the GAA’s Central Council the right to amend or withdraw the trialed rules at any stage (“Central Council shall be entitled to rescind or amend any Rule changes made by this Special Congress upon a motion submitted by the Management Committee at the request of the Standing Committee on Playing Rules or the Rules Advisory Committee”).

This was almost certainly the oil which greased the machine and allowed for the various rules to be trialed in the first place. It offers a safety net – but it also offers danger. It will take time for proper trials, for the various wrinkles to either smoothen or deepen. The hope has to be that when the first callers to Liveline are losing themselves to hysteria, those with the power to respond are stoic enough to stand their ground until enough compelling evidence emerges.

*Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin