A caution is a punishment not a booking

What a wonderful invention the Internet is, with its e-mail facility. Rather than wait for days or weeks for an answer, you can get almost instantaneous replies. Of course it's a mistake to always expect a reply, despite what people promise.

Last year for instance I e-mailed the sports departments of both BBC and ITV television with the same simple question but never got an answer from either. What I wanted to know was why, when a player in a televised match is shown a yellow card, they always accompany this with a caption which says 'booked'. I pointed out to them that the word 'booked' does not appear anywhere in the Laws of the Game. Would it not be better I asked, to use the correct term which is
'cautioned'. You might think that this is being a little pedantic and that everyone knows what 'booked' means but I feel that this is the problem. 

The term 'booking' doesn't convey what a caution entails.
A booking is what you do when you reserve a hotel room or make a flight reservation. It is also what theatrical agents obtain for their clients. A caution on the other hand is an admonishment to the player that he has committed an unacceptable act in the eyes of the Laws of the Game. For the player this will mean a fine; the going rate in local football is £7.1 sometimes see players on the local parks commit the silliest of actions that lead to a caution and I say under my breath, 'I hope you think that was worth seven quid'.

But a caution is more than an admonishment. It is a formal warning to a player that he must behave for the rest of the match otherwise it could lead to greater punishment. In other words, further misconduct could result in him being sent off. That's why I think we need to get the terminology right. I'm not criticising referees in the top flight, but for various reasons, you seldom see them administer a caution correctly. Watch them on television and what you will see, is that they tend to take the players number and then flash the yellow card. The way we are taught as referees, is somewhat different. 

First you should tell the player he is being cautioned, ask for his name and record it, together with his number in your notebook. This is of course where the term 'booking' comes from. Then the referee should issue a warning to the player that, if he commits any further misconduct which warrants another caution he will be sent from the field of play. It is therefore what it says, a caution and not a booking.
If players accept it in this way, they should try and keep out of trouble for the rest of the game. Professional footballers know all this, so I don't understand why so many seem oblivious to the fact that they need to be careful about their future conduct. Time and time again you see players who have already been cautioned commit another totally unnecessary cautionable offence. 

For example, just recently a player had been cautioned after making a reckless tackle. Later on he decided when a free kick was awarded against his team, to pick up the ball and walk with it towards his own goal. He then threw it away in the direction of his goal line. Delaying the restart of the game, is one of the seven cautionable
offences and yet the player protested when the referee produced a second yellow card followed by a red and he was sent off.
A little help from the television companies might make everyone realise that a caution is a punishment and a warning, not just a name in the referee's notebook.

Dick Sawdon Smith

 

© R Sawdon Smith 2002

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