What is being questioned?
Every question in this scenario
The Temporary dismissal investigation scenario asks 7 questions and can reach 16 decisions. A walk answers only the ones its own answers lead to. This is the whole set, for reference and for revision.
1What is being questioned?
A cautionable offence punished by an immediate suspension from the next part of the match.
Answers: Whether sin bins can be used, and for whom · The signal, and where the player waits · How long it lasts, and coming back · Which offences it applies to, and a second caution · An offence during the dismissal period · Carrying over into the second half, extra time or penalties · Return substitutes · Reporting it, and whether it counts towards a suspension
2Which?
Two separate limits, one on the competition and one on the person, and both are absolute rather than a matter for the referee.
Answers: Which competitions may use them · Which players they apply to
3What about the period?
The length of the temporary dismissal is the same for all offences, which is the design choice that makes the whole thing workable: there is no scale of severity to argue about.
Answers: How long it should be · When it starts, and what counts towards it · Coming back, or being substituted
4Which system is the competition using?
The choice changes what a second caution does, which is the part worth knowing before a match rather than during one.
Answers: System A, for all cautionable offences · System B, for a predefined list
5Is this the player's second caution in the match?
Under System A the second caution is answered by the protocol rather than by Law 12's ordinary second-yellow rule.
Answers: Yes · No
6Is this the player's second caution in the match?
Under System B a predefined list is sin-binned and every other cautionable offence is an ordinary yellow card.
Answers: Yes · No
7Where did the period run out of match?
The guidelines answer all three cases and the last one is the one people get wrong.
Answers: The end of the first half · The end of the second half, with extra time to come · The end of the match, with penalties to come
Every decision it can reach
Each one is where a walk ends, with the reasoning it prints. The clause behind a decision is cited on the decision itself, which you reach by walking to it.
Youth, veterans, disability and grassroots only, with approval
Temporary dismissals for all or some cautionable offences are an option in youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football competitions, subject to the approval of the competition's national association, confederation or FIFA. Two separate things sit in that sentence. The approval is the precondition, and what the association should approve is a protocol, for publication in the competition rules, within these guidelines. Which competitions count as grassroots is not the Laws' line to draw either: each national association determines which competitions at the lowest levels of football are designated grassroots, so an adult league can sit inside these guidelines or outside them depending on where its own association draws that line.
All players including goalkeepers, and nobody on the bench
Temporary dismissals apply to all players including goalkeepers, but not to cautionable offences committed by a substitute or substituted player. A goalkeeper being sin-binned is the case that makes people look twice and it is expressly covered; someone cautioned on the bench is not, so their caution is an ordinary one with no dismissal period attached to it.
Yellow card, then both arms to the dismissal area
The referee indicates a temporary dismissal by showing a yellow card and then clearly pointing with both arms to the temporary dismissal area, usually the player's technical area. The card comes first and is not replaced by the dismissal: a temporary dismissal is a caution plus a suspension, not an alternative to one. The player should remain within the technical area where one exists, or with the team's coach or technical staff, unless warming up under the same conditions as a substitute.
10 to 15% of playing time, and the same for every offence
The length of the temporary dismissal is the same for all offences, and should be 10 to 15% of the total playing time, for example 10 minutes in a 90-minute match or 8 minutes in an 80-minute match. Both halves matter: the proportion sets the figure, and the uniformity removes any argument about whether one offence deserves longer than another.
It starts when play restarts, and stoppages count towards it
The temporary dismissal period begins when play restarts after the player has left the field of play, so the walk off is not part of it. The referee should include in the period any time lost for a stoppage for which additional time will be allowed at the end of the half, such as a substitution, an injury or a goal celebration. Competitions must decide who helps the referee time it, which could be a delegate, fourth official or neutral assistant referee, or a team official.
Back from the touchline at the next stoppage, with the referee's permission
Once the period has been completed the player can return from the touchline with the referee's permission when the ball is next out of play, and the referee has the final decision as to when the player can return. A temporarily dismissed player can only be substituted after the period has ended, and only if the team has not used all its permitted substitutes and substitution opportunities. That last rule is what stops a team ending its own punishment early by replacing the player.
A second period, then no further part, and the team may replace them
Under System A a player who receives a second caution will serve a second temporary dismissal period and then take no further part in the match, and may be replaced by a substitute at the end of that second period if the team has not used its maximum substitutes and substitution opportunities. The replacement is conditional on that, so a team with nothing left to use plays the rest of the match short, and the Laws give the reason for allowing it at all in their own words: the team has already been punished by playing without that player for two temporary dismissal periods. That is the sharpest difference between the two systems, because System B answers the same two cautions with a sending-off and no replacement at any point.
Temporary dismissal
Under System A, all cautionable offences are punished with a temporary dismissal. Every one of them, with no predefined list to check and no discretion about which offences qualify, which is the simplicity the system is chosen for.
Sent off, whichever cautions they were
Under System B a player who receives two cautions in the same match is sent off, even if one or both cautions were for a temporary dismissal offence. This is the ordinary Law 12 outcome and it is exactly what System A displaces, so the same two cautions end the match here with ten players, and under System A with a second dismissal period and a replacement if the team still has a substitute and a substitution opportunity left.
Temporary dismissal if it is on the list, otherwise an ordinary caution
Under System B a predefined list of cautionable offences is punished by a temporary dismissal, and all other cautionable offences are punished with a yellow card but no temporary dismissal. So the referee has two kinds of caution to keep apart, and the list is the competition's rather than the Laws'.
No further part, and no replacement
A temporarily dismissed player who commits a cautionable or sending-off offence during their temporary dismissal period will take no further part in the match and may not be replaced or substituted. Either kind of offence does it, and the guidelines add that consequence without printing a card of their own. Ruleside reads the card shown as whatever the offence itself earns, so a cautionable offence during the period is still a yellow card and the player's match ends anyway. The team is left short for the rest of it, which is harsher than System A's answer to a second caution, where a second period is served and a substitute may come on at the end of it.
The remainder is served from the start of the second half
If a temporary dismissal period has not been completed at the end of the first half, the remaining period is served from the start of the second half, and this also applies in extra time. The half-time interval does not count towards it, so a player sin-binned in the 44th minute serves almost the whole period after the restart.
The remainder is served from the start of extra time
If a temporary dismissal period has not been completed at the end of the second half when extra time is to be played, the remaining period is served from the start of extra time. Same principle as the half-time carry-over, and the break between normal time and extra time does not count towards it either.
They take part in the shoot-out anyway
A player who is still serving a temporary dismissal at the end of the match is permitted to take part in penalties, because temporary dismissals are not used during penalties. The punishment simply ends with the match rather than following the player into the shoot-out, which is the opposite of a sending-off: Law 10 says a player sent off during the match is not permitted to take part. Law 10 also limits the kicks to players who are on the field of play, or temporarily off it for injury or equipment, at the end of the match, which is why this needed saying at all: a player serving a period is off the field for neither of those reasons, so the guidelines answer it expressly.
Also youth, veterans, disability and grassroots only
A return substitute is a player who has already played in the match, has been substituted, and later returns to play by replacing another player. The use of return substitutions is only permitted in youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football, subject to the agreement of the national association, confederation or FIFA, which is the same set of competitions sin bins are limited to. Apart from the dispensation for a substituted player to return, all other provisions of Law 3 and the Laws of the Game apply, including the substitution procedure.
The competition decides, the same way it does for cautions
Competitions and national associations will decide if temporary dismissals must be reported to the appropriate authorities and whether any further disciplinary action may be taken, for example a suspension for accumulating a number of temporary dismissals, as with standard cautions. So whether a sin bin follows a player past the final whistle is not a question these guidelines answer. They hand it to the competition and point at the accumulation model cautions already use, which is why two leagues can run the same protocol on the field and count it differently afterwards.