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LAWS OF THE GAME: ASK THE REFEREE

In response to various questions, the following are responses from the National Referee Program Office:

DISSENT? VIOLENT CONDUCT? NOTHING?

Question:
The situation is this: Team A has a free kick in good goal 20 meters from team B's goal. Free kick taker in Team A wants the referee to move the wall further from the ball. The referee says the distance is ok. The free kick taker in team A then shoots the ball with full power deliberately into the wall of team B players to demonstrate he considers the players are standing to close. Decision? Restart of play?

Answer:
Referees are not capable nor trained in reading the minds of the players. It is hard to accept the notion that a player who kicks the ball at full force at goal -- with opponents happening to be standing in the way (regardless of the distance) -- could be considered guilty of committing violent conduct or any other infringement of the Law. Asking the referee to decide that there has been an infringement, e. g., violent conduct, has meaning only if there is a possibility of it being true. Kicking the ball hard at goal, hopefully THROUGH the wall, is an understandable and acceptable tactic. The kicker may hope that the force of the kick will power the ball through the wall or that, in anticipation of the ball being kicked forcefully, an opponent in the wall may duck and allow the ball to go through. We see no reason for any stoppage in play, nor for any action against the kicker.

THE GOALKEEPER AND THE PENALTY AREA LINE

Question:
A goalkeeper gains possession of the ball in their area. They get ready to punt the ball. They let go of the ball at the top of the penalty area line. They release the ball from their hands in the area but their foot makes contact with the ball during the act of punting outside the penalty area. Is this a violation? Does the entire act of punting have to take place in the penalty area? Or is it no violation. because the ball was released from the keeper's hands within the penalty area?

Answer:
The answers to your questions in the order in which they were asked:
1. No.
2. No.
3. Yes.

INCLUDING PLAYERS OFF THE FIELD IN OFFSIDE

Question:
The following happened a couple days ago during a competitive adult amateur match. I was lead AR. An attacker A1 held the ball directly in front of me. The second to last defender D1 was charging hard at A1 (and me), but missed the tackle since A1 neatly passed the ball toward the half line. D1, because of his momentum and slick conditions, slid off the field, behind me and out of my field of view.

In a bang-bang play, the ball was then played forward by a second attacker A2 to a third attacker A3 who was running up the field. At the moment of the pass toward the goal, A3 was clearly in front of any other defenders that I could see, and almost in line with me. I could not tell -- because D1 was somewhere behind me now -- whether A3 was in an offside position.

How do I decide if this is an offside offense when I am unsure of the position of the off the field defender? Note that because of the speed of play, I did not have time to back up, turn around or otherwise judge the location of D1.

Answer:
If you cannot be sure of the position of the defender, then you cannot call offside. You might consider looking to the referee for assistance. (He or she should be aware of where you are most of the time.) If the referee cannot help, then there is doubt. If there is doubt, then there is no offside -- and this applies to both the offside position and the offside infringement.

MOVING A BALL ALREADY PLACED FOR A GOAL KICK

Question:
Situation: I am the chief referee for a BU12 recreational match. I have just awarded a goal kick and the keeper has placed the ball to take the kick. I then stop play for a substitution, as allowed by local rules (I wasn't taking away a quick kick opportunity since the substitution was requested by the keeper's coach). Upon signaling for play to resume, the keeper picks up the ball, and places it in a completely different area of the goal box (still legally placed, though), then takes the kick. After the match, one of my ARs informs me that the ball cannot be replaced like that, and that I should have made the kicker take the kick from the spot where he originally placed it.

I have been unable to locate anything on this. I have enjoyed working with this other referee many times and have respect for the advice, but I would still like to know where this is drawn from. Have I missed something? Where is there a reference to this? I do realize that, in some situations, this type of action may be considered as delaying a restart and, therefore, should be sanctioned as such. But, in this situation, I had already stopped the game for a legal substitution and did not see any harm in allowing this (the keeper did not take an excessive amount of time to re-place the ball).

Answer:
At one time the ball had to be put into play at a goal kick from the side on which it left the field. This requirement was dropped some years ago in the interests of reducing time wasting, and play may now be restarted with the goal kick taken from any spot in the goal area. This was of some help in reducing the time wasting, but clearly not enough. The IFAB (the people who make the Laws of the Game) and FIFA (the people who administer the game worldwide) launched a campaign in 2000 that continued into 2002: Its theme was to eliminate excessive delay from the game. U. S. Soccer's position can be found in the USSF publication "Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game," where it has been since 2001. Advice 12.28.4 indicates that one reason for cautioning a player for delaying the restart is the act of unnecessarily moving a ball which has already been properly placed on the ground for a goal kick. Clearly the referee will not caution where there is no measurable loss of playing time, such as in the situation you experienced. Not sure what your local rules of competition say, but the Laws of the Game permit substitution at ANY stoppage of play.

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