Question Number: 27056

Law 5 - The Referee 12/7/2012

RE: High School

Chris Gaugha of Antioch, CA USA asks...

A defender won the ball outsider her own penalty area and was fouled as she dribbled upfield. She shook off the foul and continued dribbling with about 20 yards of open space ahead of her.
The ref blew the whistle for the foul and the coach shouted 'come on ref, play the advantage'.
The ref yelled back at the coach saying 'you can't play advantage in your own defensive third of the field'.

I think that while the area of the field should be taken in to consideration, there is no hard and fast rule where you can NOT play advantage.

Please advise.
Thank you.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

Advantage can be allowed in any part of the field of play in both high school (NFHS) rules and TLOG. Whether there is any real advantage to a team in the defending third is a judgment call for the referee. Retaining possession of the ball is not the same as an advantageous attack.

Coach's comments are rarely helpful in this situation.

But, the players responses provide good clues: 'thank you ref,' from the victim of the foul can indicate that stopping play was a good management decision. An exasperated look from the attacker may indicate that the referee ought to quickly apologize for stopping play and wait a few seconds more the next time.

Advantage is an art.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Chris
As Referee Wickham states advantage can be played in any part of the field of play. Some referees believe that it is not a good idea to play advantage in a team's defensive last third as if advantage is not realised with the ball lost it can cause problems for the team in a vulnerable position.
From the description given it is not clear if there is sufficient advantage available. Possession plus space are elements to be considered but also position and support of team mates, skill levels, numbers of opponents etc. From the coach's shout it would seem that it was more advantageous to continue rather than stopping play which allows the opponents to regroup. The 20 yards would have brought the player to half way.
The referee's comments were also unhelpful as there is no 'can't' in this situation and the fouled player can be upset that she has been denied the opportunity to start a favourable attack .
The most recent one of these that I encountered as an AR in a high level game was somehwat similar except that the referee thought that the player was unable to recover from the foul which he did. The referee apologised for whistling the foul early rather than playing advantage which was more favourable.
What a referee certainly does not want to hear is "There was no advantgae there ref" which perhaps led to a goal being conceded.

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

It's not that you can't play advantage in the defensive end. It's just that it's often not a good idea.

Your situation had a player with about 20 yards of free space - but what after that? Were there a lot of other players that could close down on her to defend? Sometimes when there's not that good of an advantage, it might be better for the ref to stop play and get things calmed down a bit.

However, suppose a player got the ball after a corner kick. Almost all the players were up for the corner; now that player has a wide open field in front of her until she encounters the sweeper 70 yards away. That might be a pretty good advantage, even though it started deep in the defending end.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Perhaps that referee has taken some advice a little too literally.

It's fairly common advice that the closer a player is to his own goal, the less likely you are to apply advantage - the last thing you want is an advantage to go wrong just outside of his own goal. So, I've heard some referees advise a rule of thumb to not award advantage in the defensive third - though of course, this is only a rule of thumb; if there is a lot of space in front, or a great counterattack opportunity, then advantage should still be considered.