Question Number: 24463

Law 5 - The Referee 1/7/2011

RE: Frosh/Soph Tournament High School

Jeff G of Tustin, CA USA asks...

During the last week of December, my daughter's Frosh/Soph team was playing in a pre-season tournament. It had been raining quite a bit in SoCal during the Christmas week and it was raining during the match. There was a puddle, okay a small lake, about 4' deep which covered 30 yards of the touch line between the halfway line and the goal line and extended into the field of play by at least 15 yards and within 2 yards of the top left corner of the penalty area.

Within 2 minutes from the start of the match, the ball went into the lake and the girls all went in after it. The ball actually floated on top but the girls were still playing the ball and getting it to move, or in this case drift. All of a sudden the side referee (two man system) blew his whistle and signaled a throw in and declared 'For the remainder of the match the puddle is out of play'! Not only that, he had the girl bring the ball up to the edge of the puddle to take the throw in! One throw-in was right from the corner of the penalty area. Now this seemed ludicrous to me, but then he wasn't consistent. Every time the ball went into the lake he waited to see what happened first. Sometimes the ball would get cleared out of the puddle and he'd let play continue.

So my question, does the authority of a referee extend to changing the field of play to something other than a rectangle because of puddles on the field? If it was a safety issue, why not abandon the match? I did take pictures of the puddle, the touch line and of girls making throw ins from within the touch lines.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Jeff
More inventive refereeing. This match should not have been played given the scale of the problem with surface water as not only was it dangerous but it did not allow for the proper playing of the game. The arbitrary decisions of the referees in this case were totally wrong. The ball is out of play when all of the ball crosses the touchline or goal line, not when it goes into a puddle!!

The referee has no authority whatsoever to change the field of play dimensions as set out in the Laws of the game or set out in the competition rules for games involving players under 16 years of age, for women footballers, for veteran footballers (over 35 years of age) and for players with disabilities. The field of play must be a rectangle.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

Goodness.

The rest of the world may be laughing at we poor people in Southern California trying to learn how to play when there is of rain interrupting our winter. (Rather than 72F and sunny.) My British friends were calling it 'perfect football weather.'

Although the players likely would prefer to play rather than have the match abandoned because the field conditions were unsafe, the referee's solution is not one recognized in high school rules nor under the laws of the game. Under high school rules, the home team is the one that, before the match begins, determines if the field conditions are safe. Once the match begins, however, it is the responsibility of the referee to determine whether the match should be abandoned (field not safe) or play should continued (field is safe).

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

No, the referee may not change the size and shape of the field. From what you describe, the home team should never have allowed the game to start and after it did, the referee should have abandoned the game immediately as playing in a lake is not acceptable.