I'm responsible for issuing one of my brother's two yellow cards in his career! And in all honesty, he was lucky it wasn't red - borderline DOGSO, only thing that saved him was the heavy touch that took the ball past him also probably took it wide enough to no long be obvious.
I’m still waiting to show one to my younger brother, only 13, I may have a few more years to wait. That being said, there’s a number of occasions when I’ve been watching him play away where he’s made yellow card worthy offences, aggressive little bugger on the pitch it must be said. However he’s on his best behaviour when I’m reffing, I think he knows I’m more than happy to yellow him
Closest I’ve come to yellow carding/sin binning a relative Is my younger cousin but that’s because he’s a gobshite on the pitch (and off it tbf)
Back to original question, I don’t think theres an issue with it, I’ve been a club appointed ref millions of times. Very rare you see neutrally appointed refs in our league, we got one a season max when I was playing.
I really don’t give a **** who wins an U11 game, so if I was reffing in my own club, I’m not worried about being bias or appearing to be bias to either side.
Even when my relatives were involved, I was probably unconsciously bias the other way first few times I reffed. More experience though and I found it easier to get into ref mode. Nowadays it’s not even a thought in my head, I just get it done easily.
I did almost pull a Mike Dean-esque advantage celebration when I allowed an advantage for an opponent to get a last minute equaliser against my brothers team (completing a comeback from 4-0 down with 15 mins to go) but managed to stop myself