Question Number: 20505

Law 1- The Field 11/13/2008

RE: Youth and HS Other

Don Aiello of Davis, CA USA asks...

As someone who has officiated soccer can you give me some insight on your experience on refereeing a game on an artificial turf field that has permanent lines for more than one sport such as football, soccer, boys and girls lacrosse such as the one shown at the bottom of this web page http://www.ci.stamford.ct.us/content/25/52/138/164/172/521/4843/46225.aspx



The key question is - Based on your experience as an official, are you able to adapt/adjust to the color of the lines for soccer even though there are other lines of other colors for other sports on the same field?



Thanks for your response.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Best one can hope for is one is a different colour for boundries which seems to be yellow for the soccer pitch. One can live with the ten yard or 5 yard pointy ball markers hard to fake ten yards from a free kick. Given the soccer pitch is wider and the only duplicate lines are fixed at goal and midline just think mellow yellow and the rest of the lines will not matter. If you do make a mistake due to field layotu a dropball restart is the likely fix.
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

I've had the experience of reffing club soccer several times on a local HS artificial field which is marked out for both soccer and pointyball, but not lacrosse. The 5-yard lines make it easy to estimate distance for free kicks and assist in determining offside. I ask the teams if they've played there before, and point out that we are using the yellow lines; the closer in white lines are for football players who can't run as far.

The surface is often faster than grass; certainly faster than long grass. The ball tends to roll forever, but it rolls true so you know where it is going. On hot days you don't get the respiration cooling effect of real grass, so it can be downright hades-like.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

The hardest part is figuring out where the penalty area is located. The schools often paint the soccer lines in black, and at night with the lights or in the harsh sunlight, they can be very hard to see, both for officials and for players.

All we can ever do is our very best. Such situations are field conditions and we adjust and adapt, just like the players do.