Question Number: 30523

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 6/18/2016

RE: Other

David Warwick of Scarborough, England asks...

How long can the goalkeeper keep the ball in his hands when headed back by a player

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi David
The Law says six seconds. In practise this gets stretched out by GKs to much onger than that as it is a law that is not very strictly enforced. In general though it has speeded up the ball getting put back into play and when coupled with the fact that the ball can not be touched by the GKs hand when kicked by a team mate the ball is more readily available for challenge. The days of frustrating the opponent by using the GK to hold the ball for lengthy periods and constant passing GK him us well gone thanks to these two laws.
I reviewed a game some time ago on this topic and I found that the GK release varied from 2 seconds right up to 12. There were no on field complaints on the longer ones as the opponents were happy for the extra six seconds or so to regroup. Perhaps in the dying seconds of a tight game teams gets more testy on the time yet a few seconds in the context of 90 minutes is seen as insignificant.
The only recent high profile decision that I can recall was in the Canada v USA 2012 Olympic semi final game where the Canadian goalkeeper was penalised for not releasing the ball quickly enough. The referee was heavily criticised for this despite being entirely correct in Law.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi David,
The laws state 6 seconds - same as when the keeper saves the ball from a shot. In reality the referee probably counts a fairly slow 6 seconds, and often won't start the count until the keeper has gotten to his feet (assuming he isn't taking too long), or until the opposing players have moved out of his way thus permitting him to start moving with the ball.

As I'm sure you're aware, in televised games 12 seconds or more has become quite common. While the law is being largely ignored, the problem is that there's now a fairly accepted standard of a lengthy delay, so it wouldn't be beneficial if any one referee at that level starts applying the law more strictly while others are still being lax. The end result is there's a fairly consistent approach (despite being much longer than permitted by the law) with few controversial decisions as a result.