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Serie B, Italy’s second-highest professional soccer league, is
unveiling a new initiative to promote sportsmanship among its
players: the green card.
On Friday,
the AP reported that after a game’s final whistle, refs will
award green cards to those players who demonstrated good
sportsmanship over the course of the game.
Admit a goal kick when the refs called a corner? Green card. Help
your opponent off the ground? Green card!
“We need to provide good examples — because clearly they’re
lacking lately,”
league president Andrea Abodi said.
Between match-fixing scandals and violent fans, Italian soccer
has taken a turn for the worse over the past several seasons.
Diving is not unique to Italian soccer, but it is certainly as
rampant in Italy as it is anywhere else in the world.
Now, at the end of the season, the players with the most green
cards will receive some sort of award.
From the AP (via
Sports Illustrated):
“It’s a symbolic award,” Abodi said, explaining that the
initiative is in the final phase of development. “It could be
something very simple. The important thing is to recognize it
when a professional does something exemplary.”
In many ways, Serie B is following similar efforts
made elsewhere in Europe to promote fair play. West Ham earned
itself a spot in the 2015-16 Europe League qualifying round
because it won the Premier League Fair Play Table last
year.
“This is just one part of a series of initiatives on and off the
pitch,” Abodi
said. “Respect has to come first. And that’s where this green
card comes into play.”
Under soccer rules, a green card cannot be awarded in the middle
of the actual match. It makes sense, but is a bit
disappointing. Can you imagine if a player could earn a yellow
card for a rough tackle, followed by a green card for
helping his opponent off the field? Would they cancel each other
out?
Abodi said he did not know if Serie A, or other leagues around
the world, would adopt the the green card initiative. Still, if
nothing else, it feels like a blessing that this didn’t
begin in the United States.
Remember all the outrage about participation trophies?
