Would blue cards improve football discipline?

ALL this fuss by football managers over the blue card experiment. What is to stop managers simply ordering their players never to argue with, let alone abuse, a referee, and never cheat?

That would help nullify the need to rein in childish players with more complicated card systems.

One rugby rule that would, in my view, help football would be to allow the ref to advance a free kick by ten yards every time he/she deems there is unacceptable backchat. That would be a clear deterrent to players misbehaving, especially if the ref ended up awarding a penalty.

CHRIS WILKINSON,

ferndown, Dorset.

IT IS no surprise that Premier League managers have poured scorn on the blue card idea. They know that, given how players act to try to gain an advantage, and with the endemic abuse of referees, a sin-bin solution could mean half their players being off the pitch.

It would be six-a-side until they realised they are not exempt from sticking to rules like the rest of us. I say, bring it on. It works superbly in rugby. Football managers will soon get a grip when sides start slipping down the league because so many players are blue-carded.

KEITH SANDY, southampton.

IF PLAYERS had stopped diving and ganging up on referees, and prominent managers hadn’t had so many hissy fits on the touchline, the blue-card idea might never have been thought of.

M. BUSBY, Birchington-on-sea, Kent.

I WAS a referee in Nottinghamshire from 1964 until I retired last year. During the past six to eight years, I had been using the sin-bin rule for under-tens in mini-soccer and had no problems at all.

DENNIS W. LEE, rainworth, notts.