Sin Bins and Dressing Rooms

My Twitter feed is often dominated by matters related to football, and especially non-League football. Recently there have been two themes that have stood out, namely sin bins and dressing rooms. I'll come to dressing rooms later, but first, sin bins.

A number of sports have used sin bins (or temporary dismissals - different sports may have different terms for the same thing) for many years; chief among these sports are ice hockey, rugby (both codes, league and union). The principle of the temporary dismissal is that a player misses a period of play after committing an offence deemed not serious enough to warrant outright dismissal from the game. Football is gradually coming round to the idea of sin bins, and they have been trialled in England over the last year.

In May 2017 it was announced that sin bins would be trialled in grassroots football, that is to say in Sunday leagues and in some Step 7 leagues (that is seven steps below the English Football League, the eleventh tier in English football)[1]. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) offered two different versions of the temporary dismissal system for football associations to use. Under System A, all cautions are handled using temporary dismissal; System B allows the use of sin-bins for some, but not all, yellow card offences. The English Football Association opted for System B and further limited it to the offence of dissent, for which - instead of issuing a caution - referees would send the offender to the sidelines for ten minutes.[2]

Over the years I have been as guilty as anyone in looking at changes like 3G pitches,  goal-line technology and VAR (Video Assistant Referee) and seeing only the pitfalls. When the sin bin trial as announced, I admit to having my reservations, somewhat along the lines of those being made by many on Twitter now, that this idea was unworkable in a level of football where neutral assistants are rare (not all clubs are able to provide an assistant either), that referees would not be able to cope and that games would descend into chaos. The results of the trial suggest otherwise, however, and I now think that the experiment is worth continuing with, and expanding. A News Release from the Football Association in July 2018 announced the following findings from the 31 leagues where sin bins had been trialled:

• 25 leagues showed an overall reduction in dissent
• 38% reduction in dissent across all leagues
• 72% of players wanted to continue with the scheme
• 77% of managers and/or coaches wanted to continue with the scheme
• 84% of referees wanted to continue with the scheme

Next season (2019-20) sin bins will be mandatory for all Step Seven leagues and below if the approval figures are similar, and dissent is shown to be reduced by a comparable rate, then the likelihood is that sin bins will be applied across all of English football eventually.

The Football Association frequently come under attack for being seen to be out of touch with football below the highest levels, for being intransigent and inflexible in applying and interpreting their own rules, and for generally treating non-League clubs in a much stricter and heavy-handed fashion than they do their Premier League counterparts. Recently, a number of people have taken to Twitter to criticise the FA over their 'new' rules about dressing room size. From the start of next season, clubs above Step 5 must have dressing rooms for players of a minimum of 18 square metres (an increase from the current minimum of 12 square metres), while dressing rooms for officials must be a minimum of 6 square metres. The change was driven by the need to accommodate increased squad sizes and to provide a better environment for players. Clubs that are not compliant by the end of March 2019 will not be eligible for promotion, or to take part in the play-offs. Non-compliant clubs then have to provide written evidence that the work would be completed by the end of July 2019, but even having supplied such documentation, failure to complete the work would mean closure of the club's ground for the 2019-20 season; failure to then complete the work by July 2020 would see the club relegated to Step 5.

A recent article in The Non-League Paper revealed that clubs had begun receiving letters
warning of the consequence of non-compliance with new regulations on dressing room size.

According to The Non-League Paper, 95% of the 228 clubs at Steps 3 and 4 are compliant, which by my calculations leaves eleven or twelve clubs still having work to do to avoid being sanctioned. One club who have concluded that they will not be able to comply are Aylesbury FC. Although the club almost meet the requirements on dressing room size for players, the officials' dressing room comes up considerably short according to a statement issued by the club,[3] and with no prospect of the work being completed by the deadline, they have accepted that they will be relegated at the end of the season.

Aylesbury FC's statement on their likely relegation due to the size of their dressing rooms.

The criticism that the FA have had, on Twitter and elsewhere, over the strict application of these 'new' rules, needs to be tempered by the fact that these are not 'new' rules at all. The fact is that these rules were announced in 2014, giving clubs five years to make sure that they were compliant. I can appreciate that for some clubs - like Aylesbury, and I'm sure there are others - completing the work to bring changing rooms up to minimum size may not be easy even if they can afford to undertake the work, although it should not be forgotten that clubs can claim up to 70% of the cost from The Football Stadia Improvement Fund, but five years seems to me to have been ample warning. Some clubs who will fail to comply may well have adopted a 'heads in the sand' approach, hoping that either exceptions would be made or that the deadline would be extended, or even that the rule would be abandoned.

The officials' changing room at Aylesbury FC. Picture by Ollie Bayliss,
Presenter of The Non-League Show on BBC Three Counties Radio via Twitter

Potters Bar Town are short a few seats and will be
relegated if they cannot find the cash to install more.

Come the end of March there will be a number of clubs in non-League football who may find that ground grading considerations - whether it be the size of the referee's changing room or the amount of covered accommodation for spectators - has as much bearing on what league they will be playing in next season as does what position they finish in the table. Over the years some clubs in Steps Three and Four may have prioritised their playing budgets overspending on ground improvements; if they have, and if they fail to comply with the necessary changes, they are likely to find themselves sin binned to Step Five for a while.

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[1] For a detailed description of football in Steps 1 to 7 (the levels below the English Football League), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_System

[2] IFAB's Guidelines for Temporary Dismissals can be found here http://www.theifab.com/laws/modifications-to-the-laws/chapters/guidelines-for-temporary-dismissals-sin-bins

[3] For the club's full statement, see http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/aylesburyfc/news/club-statement-2386347.html#.XEAc7An1m_U.twitter