Question Number: 24689

Law 5 - The Referee 3/14/2011

RE: Select Under 17

Max of Dearborn Heights, Michigan USA asks...

The goalkeeper handles the ball. Then he wants to punt/throw it to his teammate. During this process he gets a leg cramp or gets injured in some other way and drops the ball to the ground. A player from the other team notices this and kicks the ball into the goal. In this case should the goal be awarded? If not, what should the restart be?

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

A leg cramp would be an unfortunate event, but is not really a serious injury. So play should continue.

If the goalkeeper is 'injured in some other way', the referee must determine whether the injury is serious enough to warrant stopping play. If so, then the play would effectively be stopped when the referee determined the injury occurred - probably before the ball went into the goal.

If the goal is denied because of an injury, the restart would be a dropped ball at the site the ball was when play was stopped, subject to the goal area restrictions. The wise referee can probably manage the dropped ball so that the goalkeeper possession is restored.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Max
This would not be a very smart decision by the goalkeeper as the referee would be within his rights to allow play to continue as minor cramp is not a serious injury or indeed it could happen so fast that the ball could be kicked into the goal in a second.
However in the spirit of fair play it would be appropriate to stop play and deal with the situation. It would certainly help match control as there would be bad feeling should play continue and a goal was scored. Indeed some teams might even kick the ball out of play should play continue and there are examples of teams doing that.
In these situations the referee will be unsure why the goalkeeper has gone down injured so I suggest erring on the side of caution and stop play to deal with the matter. It is not as if the opponents have been denied a goal because of their play.
In summary there is the correct in Law decision and there is the 'best' decision for the game. IMO the 'best' decision is to stop play and restart with a dropped ball.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

IMO if the cramp is serious enough to cause the keeper to drop the ball in front of his own net, then he might as well be unconscious. Don't allow the goal as play stopped when the keeper went down. Restart with a dropped ball. It would be unfair to punish the keeper's team to allow a goal while the keeper was down. Cramps can be serious. While running the Atlanta marathon years back, my right calf cramped so bad I ended up in an ambulance. The pain was unbelievable. Felt like someone had stuck a knife in my muscle. the cramp actually tore the muscle it was so intense