Question Number: 26521

Law 5 - The Referee 7/1/2012

RE: Competitive Under 15

Megan of Dartmouth, NS Canada asks...

My team recently played a match in which we had a penalty kick taken away, after the referee had clearly stated we would receive one, the reason being that one of our players moved a corner flag on a corner kick (with the permission of the referee) and the opposing coach SCREAMING at the assistant referee until he had no choice but to confront the referee about her call. Is there anything in the rules that prevents any of the above? Was the referee permitted by the laws to reverse her call?

(P.S Play had started and been called down again for the penalty before the coach began yelling)

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Megan
An interesting scenario although I don't fully understand what happened here.
The player by removing the corner flag breached Law 1 and the corner kick should not have been allowed to be taken. Now the referee by allowing the kick to be taken in my opinion either seen this as a trifling offence or she did not see that happening or she was not familiar with the Law.
You do not state what the restart was after the penalty decision and that will give an indication of the referee's interpretation of the situation and whether she was entitled to in Law to go with that.
If the referee did not give permission for the flag to be removed and she was informed by the assistant of the breach then the only possible restart is a retake of the corner kick with the flag in place.
If she did give permission which would be wrong in law and she was corrected by the assistant who I assume was at half way line then the restart should also be a retake with the flag in place.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The referee has the power to reverse any decision until the restart of play.

If I understand your post, the team taking a corner kick moved the corner flag with the permission of the referee. The kick was taken and the defending team then committed a foul, leading to an award of a penalty kick. The penalty kick was taken, and a goal scored. The referee then decided that the corner kick should not have been taken until the flag was put back into the correct location, disallowed the goal, and ordered another corner kick?????

If those are the facts, the goal should not have been disallowed. Play restarted twice (the first time was the taking of the corner kick; the second was the taking of the penalty kick). Even if the referee committed a clear error (not clear that this is the case), the referee's only option after play restarts is to report what happened to the league in the match report and let the league decide what to do on any protest.

There are lots of times when it IS appropriate for the referee to allow a player to move a corner flag. In an international match, the flag is always in the correct and upright location. On amateur fields, however, it is common for the flag to fall down or droop. As referee, I prefer to fix the flag myself (to avoid opposing coaches and players yelling about a player touching the flag as if it were a sacred relic). But, there is nothing wrong with returning the flag to its correct location.

Players are not permitted to remove a flag to make it easier for them to take the kick. The referee should not give permission for that.

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