Question Number: 26628

Law 5 - The Referee 8/13/2012

RE: COMP Under 13

Mark of Sacramento, CA USA asks...

Dear Esteemed Panel.

I am suprised at the outrage over the US goal that sent the Candian women's team home. News feeds seem consistant and clear that the AR warned the Canadian keeper after the first half concluded that she needed to get the ball in play more quickley. One would think that players at this level would not overlook such a warning.

Wambach's counting seconds while the ball was in the keepers hands seems like a brilliant and clever way to remind the officials that the ball must be put into play propmtly by the keeper. I see this more as Canadian strategic errors as opposed to trickery by the US.

Your thoughts
Mark

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

Public reaction will be strong whenever a referee's decision appears to affect the outcome of the match. But, referees are in the business of making hard decisions.

IMO, referees should put a stop to players who are loudly counting six seconds when their opponent's keeper has the ball. We should be clear in recognizing this for what it is: dissent. Its purpose is to criticize the referee and affect her future decisions. While neither brilliant nor clever, it is common. There are many ways that the referee should gauge the temperature of the match and how players are reacting to time delaying measures. Dissent that is public and persistent, however, should not be ignored.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Mark
The issue really was that while the offence was clear most in the game including players and coaches see it is a trifling offence which is rarely called. So a player counting out the time to the referee is questioning the referee's decision making or lack thereof which is dissent. I would take a dim view of any player counting out to me in such a manner.
It was a difficult situation, poorly handled, in a tense game. Had the penalty kick not resulted from the IDFK, little would have been said about it.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

If the Canadian keeper was warned then she should have expected to get called for this. The problem many are having is the timing of the call in that the Canadian keeper in the second half had already held the ball longer than 10 seconds with no whistle. I think the referee had finally had enough and had decided the next time the keeper held the ball longer than six seconds she was blowing the whistle.

As to Abby Wambach's counting, had this bothered the referee she could have put a halt to it immediately. Obviously, this referee was not upset with the counting and I doubt it had any influence on the referee.