Question Number: 31842

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 9/29/2017

Zluvka of Liberec, Czech Republic Czech Republic asks...

I have questions about DOGSO 'without clear future'.

Situation 1: Player passes the ball into box and goalkeeper catches this ball outside penalty area.

Maybe this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUdVvKXhck

0:35 Michael Gspurning, 0:50 Kiko Casilla

I think, that the first is not DOGSO (player cannot control the ball, the goalkeeper might still be able to intervene without offence), the second hard to say etc.

Situation 2: Goalkeeper touches (or catches) the ball outside the penalty area in front of his body. It is clear that without this handball the ball would hit his body (or chest). I don't know if it is DOGSO :-)

Situation 3: Attacker runs with the ball and last defender fouls him from the front. The ball is also in front of the defender. I think, that it is not DOGSO, because 'future of the action' is not clear.

And now questions:

A) When is the crucial moment for the assessment? What do you judge?

B) Does the future of the action have to be clear? Or not?

C) Can the referee take such circumstances into account as described in Situation 2?

D) Does referee consider player's possibility to intervene in fair manner? (Situation 3)

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Zluvka
On the send off for denying a goal or goal scoring opportunity the referee assesses what is referred to a as the 4Ds. These are
# The Distance between the offence and the goal
# The likelihood of attackers keeping or gaining control of the ball Distance to the ball.
# The Direction of the play
# The location and number of Defenders.
All four need to be present and there may be times when one is missing such as say the offence happens while the players are moving away from goal - direction of play or the attacker was well away from the goalkeeper and it was simply a misjudgement of location - distance to the ball in which case there is no DOGSO.
The award of a penalty kick on genuine attempts to play the ball now results in a yellow card rather than a red card as the penalty restores the goal svoring opportunity. Deliberate handling, pulling back, tripping etcetc are not genuine attempts to play the ball and are still sanctioned as a red card once the DOGSO conditions are met.
Now the referee assesses the 4D at the moment of the foul with a What Happens Next had the foul not happened.
The Gspurning one is debatable about what might happen and for me sufficient doubt for it not to be a red card. The referee had no doubt as he had the card out instantly and I suppose the goalkeeper knew what he was doing which was most certainly unsporting. In the past I have gone with yellow insuch circumstances as the attackers distance from the ball was far enough away to opine that theywould not have got control of the ball had the GK chosen to allow the ball past him and play the ball inside the penalty area.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Zluvka,
There are a number of red cards shown in that video that I would disagree with - and a number of others that I would agree with. For me, the main question to answer is what would have happened if the goalie did not handle the ball. There are a number of instances where it looks to me that the ball would probably have gone straight into the net or left a player with uncontested possession of the ball in front of an empty net, if not for the keeper's illegal intervention. Those should be red cards.

However there were several where the ball was not headed directly into the net or where it looked to me that the forward stood almost no chance of being able to gain possession of the ball if the keeper had let it run and yet the keeper was red-carded anyway. For me, those were incorrect red cards.

Actually, the most surprising incident as far as I'm concerned is the one that goes from 1:05 to 1:20. Not only did the referee not card the goalie, he did not even award a free kick. For some inexplicable reason he allowed play to continue, even though the keeper had deliberately handled the ball some 10 yards outside the penalty area. Here is a link to a longer version of the incident, showing that play was allowed to continue afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUdVvKXhck

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 31848