Furious fans accuse IFAB of 'killing the sport' with 'baffling' blue cards plan

Fury erupted today over plans to introduce blue cards to football, with fans, players and managers raging that the 'baffling plan' for 10-minute sin bins would 'kill the game' and cause even more damage to its entertainment value than VAR.

Arsenal legend Paul Merson said the proposal would create the 'most boring football ever', while one manager openly admitted that his side would simply 'retreat and waste time' until his side returned to having 11 players.

Fans blasted lawmakers at the International Football Association Board in Switzerland, which is set to announce today how it will trial the new measure, and accused 'rich' bureaucrats of 'stealing our beautiful game'.

Under a plan modelled on rugby, players will be shown a blue card and sin-binned for 10 minutes if they are guilty of committing a cynical foul, or if they show dissent towards the referee.

But former Chief of Referees Keith Hackett said this would simply 'accommodate weak refereeing' - pointing out that these offences can already been punished with a yellow card.

An avalanche of criticism met the prospect of blue cards in the English game today, with former England international Paul Merson arguing they would only worsen the current crisis of timewasting.

He told Sky News: 'They're trying to copy rugby, they are very good at it, they've been working on it for a long time.

'But their sin bin is massive, you're talking seven to ten points, the game opens up - it's very rare you are not going to get majorly punished. In football, you just sit ten behind the ball and the game will be killed.

'The ball will go out and they'll jog and get it, they'll waste time.

'Then someone else will be sin-binned and everybody will be looking at the scoreboard going: 'Tom is