Question Number: 31398

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 3/27/2017

RE: Rec Under 19

Saul F of Goshen , IN USA asks...

1. I have a question about a dangerous play. If the ball is in the air and an attacker and a defender both raise their foot up high at about the same time in a dangerous way to get the ball what should you call?
2. What if an attacker has the ball and it gets away from and he runs to get the ball, but a defender is approaching with speed and the defender raises his foot in a dangerous play and as well as the attacker does the same raises his foot in a dangerous play, this time both players get make contact with the ball at same timeand both fall to the ground. What's should you call?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Saul
It is a matter for the referee to opine. The technical answer is a dropped ball restart for simultaneous offence by opposing players. Rarely though do offence occur simultaneously and the referee will call the first to foul or the one that the more serious foul. To quote the Law * punishes the more serious offence, in terms of sanction, restart, physical severity and tactical impact, when more than one offence occurs at the same time.*
On your second call it is a direct free kick offence of kicking an opponent and the same position applies. Was there contact first by one of the players or was one players action more serious than the other such as perhaps direction of the raised boot, was one player more likely to be closer to possession of the ball

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Saul,
As Ref McHugh says, it is very rare for truly simultaneous and identical offences to occur. In fact I cannot recall a single instance of the referee calling this in a game that I have seen. Normally the referee will choose whichever happened first or which is judged to be more serious and my colleague had given some good pointers as to how this could be decided.

I would also say that your question seems to imply that just because there is a high foot (or feet) the offence of playing in a dangerous manner has occurred but this is not necessarily true. For instance, in your second example if both players contacted only the ball and not each other it could be that neither player was actually, really in danger of being injured, in which case no offence might have occurred and no call might be necessary.