The problem with the black card
And How To Fix It — Part 1 of 3
(Note this article was originally written back in 2014, updated 2017)
What’s a Black Card?
A side issue we have seen since the introduction of the black card is the public’s lack of understanding of what constitutes a “Black Card Offence”.
Shouts of “Black Card, Ref!!” can be heard echoing from the sideline of every game after just about every foul challenge this season. “Ah THAT’s not a black card!” can be heard in equal measure after the issuance of every other black card.
Over time most people will probably get a better understanding. Certainly the GAA, or it’s televisual wing otherwise known as ‘The Sunday Game’, could be doing more in this regard. Flashing up some information about the black card during a contentious incident on our screens wouldn’t take much effort and would lower many a raised eyebrow of the viewing public. They wouldn’t need to do it forever, but surely for the 1st season it should be implemented. Hopefully competition from Sky will push RTE to try out some more cutting-edge(!) features in their broadcasts.
But back to the black card. The black card is supposed to be issued when one of the following 5 infractions occur on the field of play:
We hear a lot about how the black card is aimed at cutting out cynical play, but as we can see there are also a couple of other infractions, numbers 4 and 5, that are aimed at increasing respectful behaviour towards opponents and referees. If you hadn’t heard of these two then you’re not alone, I hadn’t either until I started researching this article. Indeed referees seem to have forgotten them also. I’ve yet to see a black card flashed for such an offence. Mind you, aggressive remonstrating is not a major issue in the GAA with the majority of the vitriol coming instead from the sidelines.
It will be interesting to see if a player reacts to a team-mate of theirs being black carded in an aggressive manner getting a black card themselves? Somehow I doubt it.
The hope would be that rule 4 will help cut out incidents of racism at the very least which have begun to creep into our game, especially at club and under-age level.
The Body Collide
I think we can all agree that rules 2 (the trip) and 3 (body collide) have been a success in the main. Deliberate body collisions have all but been eradicated from the game. This, probably more than any of the other 4, has helped teams attack with much more potency. The body collide had massively hampered the old reliable football “One-Two”, the corner-stone of any GAA training session!
With the “One-Two” back in play this has seen an increase in the numbers of attacking players coming forward unchecked at pace. The ultra-defensive “14 men behind the ball” style of play that has flourished from 2010 to 2015 has been rendered all but obsolete. Less defensive-minded teams such as Dublin, Mayo and Kerry have prospered under the black card and others will need to follow suit to keep up. Of course having a good defence is still important and that is why we are seeing a slightly more forward-thinking but still defensively solid Donegal and Tyrone teams looking good during this period also.
The Trip
The Trip(2) has also worked very well. We have seen a few players rightly black carded this season for this offence. My only issue with this ruling is around the use of the term “deliberate”. While there are deliberate trips and accidental trips, there is also a third kind that falls between both, the dreaded “grey area”!
A couple of the black-carded trips I have seen were not what I would term deliberate as such — deliberate in the sense that their sole intention was to ground the opposing player. Some I have seen were tired arms stuck out late in the game trying naively and awkwardly to dispossess an opponent. Some were what I would call a reflex action — The player slips to the ground, reaches desperately for the ball or the player out of habit or duty and catches the opponent and the opponent is tripped up by this action.
Deliberate? Maybe, maybe not. Black-Cards? Going by the current wording of the rule, no.
So, while some trips are quite obviously intentional, there is that grey area. We need a way of dealing with these grey area trips where we are unable to ascertain the deliberateness of the trip.
Solution to The Trip Issue
If a trip occurs and it looks deliberate but we cannot be sure that it was, then does that make it accidental? I think it would be wrong to term them as accidental, a little bit of thought went into the act, they may not have wanted to trip the player as such, but they did.
The GAA could save themselves here by changing the wording to be:
“Blatant trip…” or taking a leaf out of the American Sport’s Book — a “Flagrant trip…”
Blatant meaning “Offensively conspicuous”. Compared this to ‘deliberate’ which is defined as “done consciously and intentionally”, in other words the player has thought about the act and intentionally decided to trip the player. It is impossible for one human being to read the mind of another. We can interpret deliberateness from a player’s actions but we can never be 100% sure. The blatancy of an act, however, can be determined by adjudicating on the act itself — was it obvious and can it be considered offensive or wrongful (in other words a foul).
Referees are already unofficially ignoring the current wording as far as I can see. They are using the following logic to make their decision on whether to black card ‘a trip’:
a. Where a defensive player while off their feet reaches out a hand and makes contact with the opponent and the opponent loses their footing then this is a black card. Whether the player had deliberately intended to trip the player is irrelevant.
b. If the player is standing and sticks out a leg, making contact with the opponent, and the opponent loses their footing then this is also a black card. Again, whether there was intent to trip is irrelevant.
Essentially they are already looking for blatant trips, not deliberate trips. So why not just change the wording!
To reiterate, I think the rule is a good one, I think referees are implementing it correctly already but I think the wording is wrong and it’s leaving them open to criticism and possible major controversies in important games.
The Pull-down
In reality no one is talking about the trip as it is more or less working. The big issue, and the one that has the power to single-handedly bring down the black card and give the GAA it’s biggest ever headache is the “Deliberate Pull-down”.
The Problem: What Is a Pull Down?
Well the first issue again is with the word deliberate, but we have already covered that with ‘the trip’ — the problem still exists here, maybe even more so. For this rule, however, there is a second and even greater issue — The definition of what a pull down actually is!
We have observed all sorts of Pull-Down black cards handed out and not handed. Below Are the Types Of ‘Black-Carded Pull Downs’ I have observed referees handing out over the first few seasons of the black card:
- Pull+Fall: The jersey pull or arm wrap followed by the player in possession falling of their own accord— either from being off-balance or allowing themselves to fall (in essence a dive of sorts). We will call this the “Pull+Fall”. In the video above (at 2:36) we see that this is NOT a black card offence. It is very difficult for the referees at times to differentiate between a pull+fall (like in the video) and a pull-down. They are going to get this wrong from time to time if they continue with the rule as it is currently worded. The wrong calls increase even more when the defensive player also falls to the ground, often times if they have a hold of the attacker’s jersey a fall for the attacker will result in the fall of the defender. It should not matter whether or not the defender falls or not. But from what we have seen it does. If the defender stays on their feet the referee is much less likely to black card the player. Should it be a black card under the current wording? No, the player has not been pulled down, they have fallen. Have black cards been given out for this? Yes, many times. The referees are mistaking a ‘pull followed by a fall’ for a ‘pull-down’ (particularly when the defensive player also goes to ground).
- The ‘deliberate’ pull down by the defender — hands on jersey or around the player, followed by the defensive player going to ground with the player in possession being pulled to ground under the weight of the defender, i.e. the player in possession has no chance of staying on their feet — they have not fallen, they have been pulled down under the weight of the other (go to 50 seconds in video above for an example). The most clear-cut type and the one that most referees have gotten right most of time.
- Attacking Pull Down: An arm grab by the Attacking player followed by that player falling of their own accord and bringing the defensive player down with them — resulting in the defensive player being black carded — under the rules (2:05 in the video) the player who does the grabbing should be black carded— simple as that. But we have seen time and again where the player being pulled down (i.e. the defensive player not in possession) has been wrongly given a black card instead. The referees are in a tricky position here. It can look at first glance that these a deliberate pull down by the defender. The key to these incidents for me, and this is only a rule of thumb mind — but one thing all these incidents seem to share is that the player doing the pulling goes to ground first. If you look at that incident in the video at 2:05, you will see that the Down player goes to ground first, the Mayo player, if anything, is trying to stay on their feet but is pulled down by the weight of the other. I agree that at the speed the incident occurs it is difficult to know 100% which of the players were culpable. But for me if the referees take this into account more so than the players’ positioning and who is in possession then more calls will be made accurately in this regard. If they cannot be sure then no card should be given.
The above are the various Pull-Down Black Cards I have observed being handed out. To summarize:
- Type 1 ‘Pull-Down’ Black Cards handed out for this offence have all been wrong decisions— This is NOT a black card offence under any circumstance — A ‘Pull + Fall’ is not the same as a ‘Pull-down’
- Type 2 Challenge — This IS a black card and referees have done a good job of correctly black carding these fouls.
- Type 3 Challenge — This is NOT a black card — It is currently being given to the player being pulled down because the referees are mistaking these fouls as type 2 pull-downs. In reality the black card should be awarded to the player doing the pulling down, in the majority of cases this is the attacking player.
Realistically the only way to adjudicate 100% accurately on this is to use a video ref.
I think a video ref should be used at the very least where a type 3 pull-down black card is about to be handed out i.e. A pull down occurs, a black card is definitely about to be handed out, but the ref cannot be sure who the offender was — in games where the facilities are available, a video ref should be used.
The Solution to the Pull-Down
A redefinition of what constitutes a pull down needs to happen ASAP.
Suggested wording:
Where a player, either on the ground already or going off their feet, blatantly pulls down an opposing player who is standing upright at that time and subsequently cannot stay on their feet due to the dragging down action, then the player doing the dragging down should be black-carded. (In the event of the referees being unable to ascertain without doubt which of the two players was responsible for the drag down a video ref should be consulted. Where a video ref is not available best judgement should be used, keeping the above definition of the ruling in mind. If a conclusion cannot be reached then no black card should be given.)
Yes, I know it’s long winded, but it clears up most of the issues. I know the video ref thing is wishful thinking on my part at this stage so it can be removed for now if needs be! I think the defensive player has to be going to ground first, this needs to be baked into the rule — it makes it much more likely that the action is a pulling down as opposed to just a pull. If the defensive player stays on their feet it is almost impossible to be 100% sure if it was a pull+fall or a pull-down.
Of course if you are of the opinion that all pulls should be black cards then you could remove the word ‘down’ from ‘pull-down’ and keep the current wording!
The Grey Area — A Comparison
We have talked about the grey area a lot already. We have seen that there is little-to-no grey area in the body collide, hence why it has worked so well. The body collide is like a late tackle in soccer or rugby, where it’s so obvious and late you can be almost certain of the player’s intentions.
We have seen a slightly larger grey area with the trip. For me the trip is comparable, grey area wise, to the high tackle in rugby. Just like with the GAA trip we see some high tackles in Rugby that look very deliberate and we can be almost certain intent was there. However we also see in rugby a lot of “borderline” high tackles. Rugby doesn't need the high tackle to be deliberate to be a yellow card offence though, just careless (careless in this case also means dangerous due to the area of the body being tackled). I’ve seen many high-tackle yellow cards in my time which you could see were almost certainly not deliberate, but neither were they accidental, if you stick your arm up high you need to take responsibility for it. However the players never argue against the awarding of a yellow in these instances and there is never any controversy after the game because the language used to define the ruling is less ambiguous (i.e. it needs to be dangerous or careless, not deliberate). The GAA can learn from this.
The pull down however has the biggest grey area of the three and hence the biggest number if issues. If we again try to compare it to other sports which have some ‘grey area’ rules, you have to look for those rules which have caused most controversy. The one that comes to mind is the “deliberate hand-ball” in Soccer. There’s not a handball decision that goes by without a big debate over the deliberateness of the act.
Can you spot the similarity in the wording? — there’s that word deliberate again!
Conclusion
I think you could rightly argue that this is all just semantics. At the end of the day — deliberate, blatant, flagrant, who cares, we all get the gist and referees are getting most of the calls right!? Well it seems a lot of people care very passionately about it actually. Just ask Joe Brolly! I think everyone would like to focus on the Football, which has been of good quality during the League, in no small part thanks to the Black Card. But at the minute a ‘grey area’ fog has descended over Croke Park and it doesn’t look like lifting anytime soon, potentially obscuring our view and enjoyment of this summer’s championship.
In essence, the wording of the black card rules (1 and 2) decided upon by the GAA was poorly conceived. In some respects it was an easy mistake to make, deliberate is the opposite of accidental after all. The problem as we have seen is that while it is usually obvious when an incident is accidental, it is often times very difficult to know if an incident was deliberate. Sometimes we can interpret intention by looking at the player’s body language, facial expression or the lateness of a tackle. But sometimes we cannot.
Added to that, the complexity and ambiguity of the Pull-Down Rule will result in it being the biggest talking point each summer in the GAA. Unless the wording is changed we will continue to see Black Cards given incorrectly — for pulls followed by falls, and defensive players being pulled down by over the shoulder arm grabs.
I fully expect the rules to change eventually, I just hope they don’t abandon the black card concept altogether as it is having a positive effect overall.
TL;DR Version
The wording of rules 1 and 2 need to be altered to prevent further controversies.
What the GAA need to do straight away:
- The Body Collide: Leave it as it is. Intention is obvious by the lateness of the challenge.
- The Trip: Change the word ‘Deliberate’ to ‘Blatant’
- The Pull-Down: Complete rewording and redefinition of the rule (see wording above)
What do you guys think!?
What are your opinions of the Black Card so far, do you think, like I do, that the Pull-Down in it’s current guise will cause serious controversy this summer? Also, Do you think the punishment fits the crime?
