Question Number: 18834

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 4/21/2008

RE: Competitive Under 16

JP of Troy, MI USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 12237

Following your goalie ball handling question, if a goalie steps out of the penalty are to retrieve a ball, uses his feet to dribble into the penalty area then picks it up, is this a foul? A friend with more experience in competitive soccer says no, but I say yes because:

He touches the ball again with his hands after it has been released from his possession (When he stoops to pick it up) and it has not touched any other player

OR he touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately kicked to him by a team-mate (Since he is doing the same thing any other team mate does by directing the ball to the goalie with his foot for the express purpose of allowing his goalie to pick it up. He just happens to be one and the same, but subject to non-goalie rules outside the penalty area.)

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

The great difficulty in trying to justify your opinion is there is no team mate involved. If the keeper gets the ball from an opponent, it comes from a team mate having not been deliberately kicked, or directly from a team mate's throw-in OR the keeper has not had it in his hands and it has not touched another player he is entitled to handle the ball within his own penalty area for a period of six seconds. The goalkeeper cannot be his own team mate unless the English language has been changed without notifying me. The Non-Goalie rules outside the penalty area mean only that he is not permitted to legally handle the ball.

Do not sanction a goalkeeper for being his own team mate, this is impossible. Listen to the other referee because he is right.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

the only way what you say could possibly be true is if the keeper had control of the ball with his hands, released it outside the penalty area and THEN went and collected it with his feet and continued as you state. In order to be guilty of a second touch, he would have had to have had a first touch. But, I digress. The keeper may go outside his own penalty area and collect the ball with his feet and dribble the ball into his penalty area and then handle it anytime except for the following two instances: 1. the ball was thrown in by a teammate and didn't touch any other player before the keeper got to it and 2. the ball was deliberately kicked by a teammate and no other player touched it before the keeper got to it.

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Is the keeper named Sybil? It sounds like you're trying to invent multiple personalities for her. The keeper is herself, a single person; she is not her teammate. The goalkeeper is prohibited from handling the ball when a teammate deliberately kicks it to her. Not when she kicks it to herself.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi JP,
my fellow referees while caustic and correct, admittedly I too suffered this delusion when the law change was first introduced! )o: I first saw it a perversion or trying to get around the reason the law was changed. I was wrong then as you are now The good thing a lesson learned from a mistake is not repeated! Cheers