Question Number: 19472

Mechanics 6/21/2008

RE: Competitive Adult

Alan Hosey of Toronto, Ontario Canada asks...

In the Euro 2008 quarterfinal between Holland and Russia, Kolodin was booked for the second time and then sent off for a foul on Sneijder, one of referee Michel's assistants told him - perhaps wrongly - the Real Madrid midfielder had not kept the ball in play, so Kolodin was allowed to stay on the pitch.
My question, is it not irrelevent that the ball was later deemed out of play, the fact remains he was booked for unsporting behaviour period. Referee's consistently give yellow cards for offences even after the ball is deemed dead for unsporting behaviour. The unsporting behaviour was engaged during the time the referee deemed the ball was in play, and in my opinion he bottled the call when he realised the player had already been booked previously. I would appreciate your comments

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

No one can know the reason the match referee acted the way he did. We just aren't in his head to follow the chain of thought. Besides we don't usually touch a referee at that level of skill, we just aren't equipped to do so.

We do, however, like to call attention to the words in Law 12: "A player is cautioned and shown the yellow card if he commits any of the following seven offences:" Does this not establish a chain of events that would have precluded what we saw happen from actually happening? When the referee speaks to the player to caution him he should notice the fact his name already appears in his book. Right then and there the referee can decide is what he saw merits another caution or just a strong talking to. AND this method is absolutely fool proof. It prevents what happened in World Cup 2006 and what we think we saw today.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Alan ,
right or wrong the AR had already signaled the ball HAD gone out of play. It is very likely the referee was unaware of the AR decision momentarily.

I must confess I do not like this quick grab and show a card for ANY reason unless it was a STRAIGHT red card to break up a retailitory explosion for a very ugly obvious incident. I prefer to look over at the near AR call over the player id book then show the card look over to my ARs then restart the play.

The officials are miked and the referee has a buzzer attached to the arm to gain quick attention to unusual situations. It was a bit of bad mechanics but if the referee accepts the AR input the ball went out of play BEFORE Kolodin's challange the he must now ask himself what did he show the card for? !

If it was for the USB of breaking up attacking play there was NO attack possible!

You are correct MISCONDUCT after play was no longer valid still could be sanctioned! A straight red for SFP would become straight red for VC. Where the referee may have felt pressured is the foul would never have occurred and the cautionable action was not sufficent in his opinion to be a reckless or USB action for a non foul event before a neccessary stoppage.

It would be so interesting to hear from the officials as a fly on the wall in the post game review.
Cheers