Question Number: 31188

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 1/17/2017

RE: rec Adult

ali al ashkar of sour, south lebanon asks...

If a player standing on or off the field of play throws an object at an opponent on the field of play, play is restarted with a direct free kick or penalty kick from the position where the object struck or would have struck the opponent
Play is restarted with an indirect free kick if a: player standing inside the field of play throws an object at any person outside the field of play
substitute or substituted player throws an object at an opponent standing inside the field of play

so why the first is direct and the second one is indirect

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Ali
The principle behind this is that penal offences ON the field of play result in a direct free kick while offences OFF the field of play mainly have an indirect free kick restart as they are generally not connected with play. That was premised on the historical position that the following conditions had to be met for an offence to be considered a foul: # it must be committed by a player # it must occur on the field of play # it must occur while the ball is in play. Offences not connected with play are misconduct.
The update of the Laws in June 2016 changed all that. In instances off the FOP where the foul is now connected with play such as holding beyond the line now results in a free kick on the touchline/goal line nearest to where the foul occurred.
Another factor is that there is a principle that the free kick is taken from where the offence took place which plainly cannot happen off the FOP. When a free kick is taken from where the ball was when play is stopped for offences off the FOP it has an IDFK restart.
For those of us around the game long enough we can recall when offences off the field of play has a dropped ball restart. That has all been changed as well. The challenge for referees is not to ask WHY yet rather do as required by the law makers.