Question Number: 30456

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 5/28/2016

RE: Rec, Select, Competetive High School

Mary Ramirez-de-Arellano of Damascus, Maryland USA asks...

At what point during an 'advantage' situation do you stop play and award a foul?

Answer provided by Referee Joe Manjone

Mary, As indicated in high school rule 5-3-1d, you are to penalize the original offense if the advantage did not develop as anticipated. As the referee, you must decide if the foul resulted in a disadvantage or did play continue after the advantage was given only to be interrupted for some other reason. You would stop play and call the original foul if play did not continue as you had anticipated and the original foul was the cause of play not continuing. Sometimes this occurs as you are in the process of giving the advantage, but often it is a few seconds after the offense occurs. I hope that you are having a successful spring.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Mary,
if there IS an advantage we do not stop play. We ONLY stop play if NO advantage is evident or the free kick location and circumstances are 100%clearly beneficial to the team to stop and take the kick . We CONSIDER the opportunity for a short time 1 to 3 to a possible 5 seconds to arrive at a decision whether we as a neutral official are happy the team that was fouled did in fact get the best choice of allowing play or returning to the free kick. WE can overlook the need to card and card at the next stoppage but if we allow advantage off a harsh looking foul I suggest we verbalize the fact to those around the offending culprit is on the radar to avoid retaliation. Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Mary
The referee should only return to the foul if the advantage does not materialise as anticipated. Many times play will continue on for a period after the foul and play should not be brought back. Now there will be times when advantage does not materialise such as a player is fouled, the referee signals advantage and the player perhaps who had not fully regained her balance falls to the ground. Play should be brought back to the foul.
Sometimes advantage has been fully realised and the ball is given away or squandered by the team. In those instance we do not come back. An example would be say a player is fouled, manages to keep going by running some 10/15 yards and then kicks the ball out over the goal line on a poor cross. That should not be brought back as the player fully realised the advantage.