Question Number: 20636

Law 10 - Method of Scoring 12/4/2008

RE: Competitive Adult College

Brian of La Jolla, Ca USA asks...

A few years ago my Sr. Year of high school we had a rival game that would decide who would be first in the league and get the automatic bid to the North Coast Section tournament.

Essentially, there was a penalty kick given to our team. the keeper blocked the PK, and the opposing team was then on a transition to attacking our goal. As play was moving up field on a counter, one of the opposing players elbowed our player who took the PK in the face. At this point all the players around had stopped due to fan noise or actually seeing this incident occur.

Unfortunately, the center referee did not notice this, and was following play which by that point only 4 players and the keeper were still playing. The result was a goal for the opposing team.

The referee awarded the goal, and upon discussing with his trailing AR who had seen the violation ejected the opposing player.

My question is if the awarded goal was the correct decision. As the trailing AR had stepped onto the field (before the goal was scored) to prevent the incident from escalating but was not able to get the referee's attention till after the goal was scored.

This was unfortunately the deciding goal in the match as the score was 3-2.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Based soley on your description.
The elbow incident, if it occurs prior to the ball entering the goal, is on the field of play, with the ball in play and by an opponent against another player it is a foul and it is an impossibility to allow the goal to stand and punish the attacking team who scored the goal by removing an attcking player who committed a foul prior to the goal. If the referee accepted the ARs input of the timing of the foul this is pure and simple a misapplication of law and protestable.
All that I tell you is based on the timing of the event.
If the elbow occured after the goal was scored or if the opponent was sent off for something after the goal then there was no recognized foul only violent misconduct before the kick off and the goal would stand and the send off for that misconduct whatever it might be is valid as well.

If what you state is true then you were indeed unfortunate
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

If the referee accepts the assistant referee's advice that a foul occurred and that it happened before the ball was scored, the play should be brought back to the point of that foul. It appears that the referee accepted that misconduct happened, but not the foul. How can this be? What was the misconduct? A player striking an opponent while the ball was in play, which is a foul. If the incidents occurred in the order in which you say, the game should have been protested, by *both* teams. One of the teams would win the protest. Your team because a goal was allowed when it should not have, in which case the game should be replayed. Or the other team because a player was sent off for an event that presumably didn't occur because the referee didn't call the foul - the game might be replayed, but any suspension for the player should be disallowed.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Based only on what you have to say, the AR saw a foul BEFORE the goal was scored.Then the ball was kicked into the net. The AR then informed the referee of the foul before the referee allowed play to restart. The referee accepted what the AR had to say and ejected the player. the ONLY proper thing to do at this point is to disallow the goal, go back to the foul and restart with a DFK for striking an opponent. If I misunderstand the sequence and the elbow occured AFTER the goal than what occured was not a foul but misconduct. The player is still sent off but the goal is good and we restart with a kickoff