The FIH has announced that they will implement the EHL rules variation mandating a 2-minute suspension for a green card in the upcoming Men’s ABN AMRO Champions Trophy in Melbourne as well as the 3 BDO WorldHockey World Cup Qualifiers in France, New Zealand and Argentina.
At those tournaments, players receiving a green card will be automatically suspended from the match for 2 minutes and their team will play with one less player, in the same fashion as a yellow card suspension. The technical officials will time the 2 minutes and allow the suspended player back onto the pitch immediately after the 2 minutes has been served.
This is a very interesting development, one aimed at removing the perception that a green card is nothing but a slap on the wrist and offers teams an opportunity to “get away with one” before they buckle down and play with discipline. From my conversations with EHL umpires who have experience with using green card suspensions, it can also put more onus on the umpires to use their full repertoire of control measures to try to prevent green cards from being needed since they now have a greater impact on the game.
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