IFAB to discuss greater role for team captains

Football lawmakers will discuss an enhanced role for captains as they aim to improve player behaviour and the image of the game.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) will meet at Wembley stadium on Friday to discuss a number of proposals involving the laws of the game, including a review of responsibilities for team captains.

IFAB is made up of representatives from FIFA and the four British associations.

"We want to look at how we can enhance the role and the responsibility of the captain to take some degree of responsibility for the behaviour of his or her players." David Elleray, IFAB technical director, told Sky Sports News HQ.

"The captain should be more than somebody who has a piece of material on their arm and attends the toss [of a coin] at the start of the game.

"Can we say, for a major incident, [only] the captain may be able to talk to the referee? If that stops six players from each team going towards the referee that will enhance respect and improve respect for the game.

"We've been moved very much in this direction, not least by the players and coaches who say 'use the captains more'. So we're responding to that. We take a view, 'what does football want?' Football wants better behaviour and a better image of the game."

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Football experts have already held talks with the game's participants around the world.

"All the indications we get from our consultations around the world is that this is something the game would like." said Elleray. "Part of the role of IFAB is not to dictate but to respond, so we have our expert panel of players, coaches, referees and in these sorts of areas, we've had discussions already.

"We want to work with the captains and this is the message we get across the world. Captains are people that respond positively to help. It's up for discussion but we could well get a decision. It wouldn't involve, necessarily, a law change. I think we would like to make progress in this area."

Elleray, who retired in 2003, is a former Premier League referee and current chairman of the FA Referees Committee.

"When I was refereeing a captain was somebody I could talk to, I could go to if a player was a bit of a problem," he said. "Sometimes you could say to a captain 'look, have a word with Freddy because he's getting quite close to a yellow card', can he calm him down?' A good captain you could explain decisions to, and you could pass that on.

"We see, in other sports, the captain does have a greater responsibility. If you look at cricket, the captain of the English team is almost more important than the coach. We wouldn't want to move in that direction but certainly we believe the captain could play a much stronger role.

"I don't know if we would go that far [as rugby]. What we would like to do is agree in principle that we want to enhance the role of the captain. We will then consult pretty widely, fairly quickly, to come up with some practical measures and then move to implement that fairly quickly if we can.

"I don't think we have very clear ideas to do what rugby does. Sometimes if we say what rugby does, football immediately says 'no, well don't do it'. I think everybody agrees the captain could play a better role in the image of the game and the behaviour of players in his or her team."