Question Number: 30749

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 9/11/2016

RE: Rec Adult

Russell of Sydney, Australia asks...

A question around simultaneous infringements. Would this be an IDFK, DFK (penalty) or drop ball?

In the final minutes of the recent Arsenal v Southampton match, the Arsenal keeper Petr Cech has gathered the ball with players from both teams close by him and looks to be thinking of making a quick release back into play (one wonders why, as they had just gone ahead 2-1 in injury time).

In Cech's initial motions to make a quick release, a Southampton player just to the right and every so slightly behind him, appears to realise there might be a quick release and makes their own initial moves to impede the release by making a deliberate action to get in front of Cech.
At the same time as this, a gunners defender just behind the Southampton player realises that the Southampton player was going to try and impede the release and so with both hands, grabs the Southhampton player on each shoulder and holds him back from getting to Cech.

Ultimately, Cech has no immediate outlet and slows down and waits for all players to move up field before he rolls it out to one of his defenders and play continues.

Question is, IF the ref wanted to be pedantic about all the actions of the two other players, would if be a case of first infringement (the intent to impede the release) is the one to pull up and so a IDFK, or would / could the ref deem both actions were so closely linked and timed, that there are two infringements at the same time, and so a drop ball restart.

I know the panel's stance on 'intent' and that it is not something we should rule on, so if we cannot rule on what was the obvious intent and are left with what did happen - the grab and hold by the defender, are we left with a Penalty?

In this actual instance the ref let it all slide and play continued, and that is no doubt what 99.99% of us would also do. However, for the pure mechanics of it all, what could have been the outcome if we were pedantic about it.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Russell
The dropped ball restart for simultaneous offences has been removed from the Laws. Referees must now punish the more serious offence, in terms of sanction, restart, physical severity and tactical impact, when more than one offence occurs at the same time.
I would also point out that rarely do offences happen simultaneously. In the example the action of the Southampton player happened first and that should be the offence that is punished.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Russell,

You ask whether a referee could call these as simultaneous offences. Not having seen the incident but going by your description and Ref McHugh's comments it seems that the Southampton player's actions preceded those of the Arsenal defender. So I would say it would not be pedantic to penalise that offence, it would simply be correct. I would go so far as to say that almost no two offences are ever truly simultaneous. One virtually always occurs at least a split second before the other.

I have never seen a case of simultaneous offences resulting in a dropped ball restart either in a game I have been involved in or in a game I have watched - and I somehow doubt if I ever will. Especially since the law on this has changed, it is now even less likely to occur since not only would the offences have to be absolutely simultaneous, they would also have to be of precisely the same nature. In fact, I would not be surprised if one of the reasons the IFAB rewrote the law the way they did, was to make the chance of a dropped ball restart for simultaneous offences even more remote than it was before.

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