Question Number: 28526

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 6/19/2014

Sean Tyler of Wilmington, DE USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 28500

Thanks for your replies - Here are replies from people I know and their comments. I was the other AR and saw all this happening. I gave the CR my best advice from what I saw from the players reaction to the flag. In any event .... I think the general consensus is ... This is what happens when there is not good communication between AR's and the CR. The book answer is a handling foul but for the good of the game a indirect free kick going out is the correct call for the 'offside', (ensuring no possible collision with the goal keeper- and no one would have argued if that had been the original call). However, you could not fault the referee for making the call he made. He is the one that would need to explain his decision either way.

State Referee/College - If this wasn't discussed in the pregame, for the good of this particular game, I would enforce the offside call. While not ideal, the center ref should have noticed the AR had not put the flag down, and called out to him to do so when the AR ignored the first attempt to wave him down. The AR seems to be inexperienced, as he/she put a flag up for an offside call that never materialized. Just being in an offside position does not indicate an infraction. I'll put this on the Center ref though...this is stuff that should be reviewed in a pregame, even if the pregame is 2 min long.
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MLS/National Referee/College- By the word of the law yes it is a hand ball, however for the good of the game I would stop play (no advantage from waving down flag) and restart with off side.
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National Referee Candidate/College- I have run into this type of issue before. The main take away from this type of situation is the importance of a thorough pregame. In the end, I think you have to go with what the players are visually calling for. If players from both teams feel it should be an indirect kick for an offside foul - go with that as not going with it is going to potential cause you management issues during the rest of the game

National Referee Emeritus/ Assessor/College - The game must always be fair and players not punished or penalized for mistakes by the Referee crew. The AR made a mistake by not lowering the flag for whatever reason. The players understood that there was a flag for offside. Whistle to stop play and restart with the indirect free kick for offside. That's what would be fair and good for the game.

As a note before I left I saw some referees all three do college and two state refs in that group and the comments were the same restart with an indirect enforcing the original offside.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Sean
Most comments have agreed that the decision in Law is deliberate handling and that they would give the IDFK for the 'good of the game''. For me it would depend on whether there was offside or not and if the referee is going to deal with the incident in law when there is no offence just 'interference' then the proper restart is a dropped ball.
In the clip I showed the CR could not have accepted the offside flag as there was no offside 9Even if the flag stayed up) and giving the IDFK when there was no offside would have been totally incorrect. The Green defending team argued that they stopped playing because of the raised flag and I think two players did. The only possible decision was to award the goal.