Question Number: 29877

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 11/1/2015

RE: AYSO Rec, U14 Under 15

Robert Mestman of Huntington Beach, CA USA asks...

Regarding goalkeeper/opponent collisions, take a look at this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwuTjzJ5wo
Is there a foul and, if so, against whom? I guess the keeper was seriously injured (needed to go to ER) and the AR appears to signal a foul, but I don't think it's a foul. Both the opponent and keeper are playing the ball. A difficult call and everyone wants to protect vulnerable players such as keepers, but it appears to be a no foul call. Thoughts?

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Robert,
The AR was indeed quick to flag a foul against red and his angle was better than the camera . I can only surmise he saw the keeper grasp the ball and not enough effort from the red player to avoid the collision. The question is was there time or any effort to pull out if possession was achieved?

Quote
A goalkeeper is considered to be in control of the ball:
• while the ball is between his hands or between his hand and any surface
(e.g. ground, own body)
• while holding the ball in his outstretched open hand
• while in the act of bouncing it on the ground or tossing it into the air
When a goalkeeper has gained possession of the ball with his hands, he cannot
be challenged by an opponent.
End Quote

The red striker had made a nice effort to get free but the ball was hit a bit too hard, allowing the keeper time to slide out and grab the ball off her feet. The keeper was brave, not the greatest technique but certainly brave in her challenge. There is no doubt there was significant risk her challenge posed by flinging herself to cover the ball. It was tight 50 /50 perhaps the red striker could have jumped over top once the keeper had placed her body and arms on top of the ball. The single angle and speed of play make difficult to tell if the red striker could have done more to minimize the collision . I will side with you though from OUR view I see no obvious foul. Just an unfortunate collision by two determined players. This was caused by the keeper going down to use her hands sliding at knee high across the fact of the oncoming player instead of kicking the ball away. Outside of her area such a move is PIADM. As a biased armchair referee this is not a video to show why a keeper requires a referee's protection but a video that shows how risky it is to slide in front of a running player. If there was a caution or a send off not shown, it likely could came from the CR looking at the injury as the reason, not the foul itself,
!
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Robert
The video view here is poor and too far away to make a call. These type of 50 / 50 challenges are always difficult to call and I would be swayed by the AR call given his angle of view
Some thoughts that I have on this.
1. Could Red be guilty of being careless in the challenge? Careless means that the player has shown a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or that she acted without precaution. If you know the game and what the goalkeeper was likely to do then the risk was present and certainly careless in my opinion.
2. The video was posted on request of the goalkeeper who sustained a serious head injury. The Red opponent says that as the ball kept bouncing with the goalkeeper coming out slightly slowly, she thought she could get to it and her knee collided with the GKs head. Now the reason stated for the posting of the video was to be a teaching tool for officials to protect goalkeepers that are in vulnerable positions? There was nothing that the referee could do here to prevent the incident happening. The reality is that the players have a duty of care to each other and to themselves and all the referee can do is to take retrospective action. Perhaps the issue was that the referee did not take disciplinary action and Im not sure if he did or not. Even if the referee took disciplinary action that would not change anything?
3. The referees first act should have been to check the well being of the players not speak with the AR. Getting the players attended to was the first priority.
4. It is unclear how play unfolded to get here yet the CR got hopelessly out of position. At the moment of the challenge I estimate that he was 35+ yards away so he then has to depend on the call of the AR. Without neutral ARs that is just too far away and a hopeless viewing angle
5. Does the referee have second thoughts after seeing the goalkeepers injury which required her to leave the field of play and go to ER. He goes back over to the AR to converse again. Perhaps it was to just inform him of the serious nature of the contact.
6. Now we all know that being a goalkeeper is a vulnerable position at times when they dive at the feet of opponents or come with eyes only on the ball in the air. Indeed referees are blamed for cosseting GK too much in challenges. I think that the manner of the dive did not help the GK here and certainly in hindsight the safer option was to kick the ball away.
In my game yesterday the goalkeeper came out in similar circumstances (who had been coached at EPL level) and he did not put himself in harms way with the forward coming off 2nd best, thankfully with no injury to either player.
One of the few times that I was ever in goal I got my arm broke diving at the feet of an player. The fault was entirely my own and how I dived caused the injury. I see a distinct lack of coaching for GKs on protection and safety.

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