Question Number: 25738

Law 7 - Match Duration 11/11/2011

RE: Under 11

John Adam of Scottsdale, AZ United States asks...

My team was losing 1-0 and my player had a breakaway and just before he was about to shoot the referee blew the whistle and said the game was over because time expired. My player shot anyway since he was in the motion of shooting and the goalie dove for the ball but only got a finger on the ball and it went in the net. My friends say that it is customary for the referee to allow a play to finish if it is a serious scoring chance even if the clock expires. Is this true? Should the referee have allowed the play to finish?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi John
The game is over when time is fully expired and the referee is the sole judge of time. If the referee deemed that the time had expired then play is ended. Also one should never confuse customary with what is in the Laws.
The Laws of the Game states that
Allowance is made in either period for all time lost through:
# substitutions
# assessment of injury to players
# removal of injured players from the field of play for treatment
# wasting time.
Now how the time is kept is a matter for each individual referee. Some referees with modern stop watches with buzzers, stop the watch for each of the above. When the watch reaches zero the game is stopped no matter where the ball is or what is happening with play. Other referees will stop the watch for injuries and major stoppages only but they will then add on a rough estimate for substitutions, time wasting etc. So on top of injuries the referee might add say 15-30 seconds per substitution and an estimate for time wasting. That all adds up to a period of time which is added on. Now many referees on this estimation method know that a few seconds can be found to allow a play to finish out. I use that method unless there is a local rule or a fixed time competition.
In this situation the referee was entitled to stop play as he did.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The referee may have followed instructions from the league (instructions that are common in some tournaments) not to add time as provided under the laws of the game.

Otherwise, IMO, it was a poor judgment. Was there not one incident in the match for which a referee could add time? That has never happened in my experience. The referee has vast discretion to decide when time expires. Time, under the laws, is flexible. Even when the referee adds time, the referee adds 'at least X minutes.'

So, while the referee was right that he must blow the whistle if time expires, the referee has the power to decide WHEN time expires. IMO, he should wait a few seconds and decide that time has not expired when a player is in the act of shooting.

Note: a very different approach applies in high school and college. Time is fixed. While the referee can order the clock stopped, when the chronometer reaches zero, the buzzer sounds. The intention is that the referee do the same when there is no stadium clock/timekeeper.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Hi Coach. The game is over when the referee decides all alloted time has been used up. While it is customary not to stop play if there is an obvious goal scoring opportunity how fair is that to the defending team to allow play to continue even though the referee has decided all allowable time has been played?