Question Number: 26940

Law 5 - The Referee 10/25/2012

RE: 4 Adult

Younan Moushi of Sydney, NSW Australia asks...

Hey guys,

Just something quickly in regards to the advantage rule.
If a player is fouled, but continues to run with the ball, I then call out advantage, and a second later the player shoots and misses the goal.

Should I call it back to the free kick or allow play to continue with a goal kick??


Thanks in advance guys, this site is awesome.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Younan
If the referee deems that advantage has been fully realised then play is not brought back for the original foul. Advantage is not used to make up for a player's mistake or mis play yet the Laws allow the referee to penalise the original offence within a few seconds if the advantage has not materialised.
What the referee can do is delay the call somewhat and adopt a short 'Wait and See' approach. In that situation the referee can award the free kick.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Younan,

It's a good question, and to make it a little confusing it's applied differently in different countries.

I'm from Australia myself (not far from Sydney, originally), so I can tell you that in Australia, we're taught not to signal advantage until after advantage has materialised.

So, say a player gets fouled, but he keeps his feet, is under a bit of pressure but has an open teammate nearby. A good situation where there's the potential for advantage.

In Australia, we would wait to see what happens, and if he gets the ball away to his teammate, thus gaining an advantage - then we would signal advantage, both visually and verbally. Some other countries will signal advantage as soon as we're considering the possibility of an advantage accruing, then pull it back if it hasn't. In Australia, if you've signalled advantage then you cannot pull it back, so make sure you don't signal it until after advantage has materialised.

Advantage is possession plus opportunity. If a player maintains possession and takes a shot at goal, then he has both. The opportunity to score is the advantage, not the goal itself, so usually if a player takes a shot, that's the advantage.

Sometimes, though, a player will do the right thing and try to shoot even as he's being put off balance by the foul, or through a very crowded penalty area - or you may even find that the foul has slowed the attacker enough to allow a player to come across and block a shot when the attacker had the open goal before the foul. In these cases it may be permissible to go back to the foul after a shot has been taken, but these are rare cases.

Going back to the foul isn't about giving an attacker 2 bites at the cherry, it's about ensuring they weren't disadvantaged by allowing play to continue - but at the same time, we want to avoid effectively punishing players for doing the right thing and trying to battle on after being fouled, even if the odds are stacked against them.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

It also has to do where the foul and shot takes place. Inside the penalty area in many countries only a goal is considered advantage realized. In others, even inside the penalty area a good shot on goal is enough to say advantage realized.