Question Number: 25946

League Specific 2/2/2012

RE: AYSO, GU10 Under 11

Dave of Santa Monica, CA United States asks...

In an AYSO Area tournament, a Yellow team that normally plays 8-a-side in U10 played a Blue team that normally plays 7-a-side. The Area Tournament rules are that all U10 games will be 7 v 7.

Yellow goes up 2-0 by halftime, 4-0 at end of the game.

At the end of the game, the referee told Blue's coach that for the entire first half, unbeknownst to the referee team, Yellow played 8 players against 7 Blue players. The referee team finally noticed this at halftime, but did not tell the Blue coach at that time.

The referee noted the discrepancy in the ref report, but that's it. An appeal to the tournament director for either the Yellow team to forfeit or to have a rematch were rebuffed; there wasn't time to do so in the tight time frame of the tournament.

So the question is: if the refs discovered this discrepancy at halftime, what should they have done? Should they have notified both coaches, and perhaps played two abbreviated periods? Do they have an obligation to tell the opposing coach at halftime, or did they do the right thing by keeping mum until after the game? And, while I know every tournament is different, in your opinion, should the tournament director have ruled differently?

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

Every referee should count the number of players before starting play for each half. In every match. The assistant referee should count before unfurling the flag; the referee should count before blowing the whistle.

Mistakes happen at every age group. It is easy to correct by counting before the start of play. As you found, it is difficult to correct the problem later.



But, the laws are clear that when a goal is scored by a team with too many players on the field, the goal must be counted if the problem is discovered after play restarts with a kickoff. The referee properly fixed the situation when the problem was discovered, and noted the issue in the match report.

Tournament directors have to decide whether a rule was broken, whether it made a difference, and the correct remedy. The laws do not provide the remedy. In this case, I suspect one problem was deciding whether it made a difference. If one ignores the goals in the first half, and only consider what happened in the second half, yellow still outscored blue 2 - 0. I suspect the ruling would have been different if the second half score had been blue-two, yellow- zer0, or if the extra player had not been on the roster. Although a forfeit was an option, my experience is that is not usually the ruling.

Although the referee team clearly erred in not counting the players, one wonders why this wasn't caught by the blue team when the first goal was scored. Had the referee been informed then, the goal would have been disallowed and the extra player removed from the field.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Dave
The only remedy open to the referee is to correct the error of an extra player when he notices it and then report the matter to the tournament organisers who will make a decision on the outcome of the match.
Also as play had started after each goal has been scored the goals scored must stand.
So the correct decision here was to ensure Yellow played with 7 players from when the problem was noticed which I assume was half time and report the 1st half error.
If the tournament organisers decreed that the result should stand based on the circumstances then that is all that counts. Another tournament organiser may decide differently and order a replay.