Miguel Conceição |
Lisbon (EFE)
Created in 2014, the white card has been a constant in the lower categories of Portuguese sport, but in 2023 it acquired a new dimension when it was shown for the first time in a major football match.
This past January, in the women’s derby between Benfica and Sporting de Portugal, a fan felt unwell in the stands and the medical teams of the two Lisbon greats put aside their historic rivalry and joined forces to assist him.
The example of sportsmanship was rewarded by the referee Catarina Campos, who gave the white to the restrooms of both clubs, a gesture that quickly went viral.
It is essentially “an educational card, which aims to value the positive gesture in the game,” explains José Lima, coordinator of the National Plan for Ethics in Sport (PNED) of Portugal, to EFE.
Currently, “many times what is talked about is the negative, the more punitive dimension of the red and the yellow, and the intrigues that exist in the game”, for which the white card tries to counteract it by “rewarding the positive “, it states.
Portuguese innovation with origins in Spain
This pioneering project dates back to 2013 and has its origins in Spain, specifically in the Coca-Cola Cup, a lower category soccer competition that applied the white card in its matches.
When moving the tournament to Portugal, he contacted the PNED for a collaboration.
In turn, the entity, linked to the state-run Portuguese Institute for Sports and Youth, decided to assign “regulations for various sports” to the card, not just soccer, and involved various entities and federations, Lima recalls.
The pilot project began in the 2014/2015 season, only at training levels, and with seven affiliated entities.
The PNED coordinator points out that since that campaign “it has been like a snowball” and currently has 78 organizations, such as municipalities, clubs and even the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), which applies it in all its competitions with the exception of the men’s Portuguese Cup.
A card for all
No one is immune to the white card. It can be shown to players, coaches, individually and collectively or even to the public.
This was the case last February, when a nurse attending a futsal match received the card after entering the field to treat a player who had been injured.
And it can even be shown to those who receive a red card, as happened recently in a third division game, when a player sent off by the referee acknowledged that the decision had been correct, a position that earned him another card, but this time the white one.
Cases like this appear daily in the Portuguese regional and national press, something the project intended.
“Very little is said about the positive dimension of sport. This card values this aspect and has brought it to the public debate,” Lima told EFE.
Its effects have also been analyzed in depth through a study that, according to the coordinator, has shown that since its application “disciplinary incidents have been reduced”.
Even the referees, often vilified, have benefited from the white card, since “it is also a way of presenting the referee as an educator, as someone who not only sanctions or punishes.”
This project, which is complemented by an annual award ceremony, has aroused the interest of organizations in the United States and even organizations such as the European Handball Federation, which has already initiated contacts.
Its application in professional men’s soccer is one of the great desires, although Lima admits that it is something “complicated” given the rigid regulations of institutions such as FIFA and the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which govern the rules of the game.
He believes that it will happen “sooner or later”, since “this card will prevail and assert itself”, he argues.