Question Number: 32188

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 1/22/2018

Petr of Prague, Czech Republic Czech Republic asks...

This question is a follow up to question 32179

Hello,

last note please. I found this sentence.

'It must be noted that if the Advantage clause is invoked and the player offended against loses control of the ball as a result of his own error, then play must be allowed to continue.'

I am thinking about two scenarios.

First in time sequence:
Attacker is fouled-referee gives advantage-attacker is under opponent's pressure-advantage ends due to this pressure-attacker (or his teammate) fouls opponent. Restart from original place against opponent's team, because last foul was after end of the advantage.

Second in time sequence:
Attacker is fouled-referee gives advantage-no pressure-advantage is going on-attacker (or his teammate) fouls opponent. Restart from second place against attacker's team, because foul was own error. I consider such a decision to be fair.

Your opinion please?

Thank you very much!

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Petr,
you are spot on!
We apply advantage.

Once we are satisfied advantage HAS occurred, we ignore the initial foul but could carry the misconduct portion if applicable for NEXT stoppage to deal with it!

If advantage is realized and the injured player or one of his teammates just arbitrarily muffs the advantage with a grievous foul it is quite likely the 1st foul is not what we are thinking off as the OPPORTUNITY was wasted/squandered not lost thus we go with the 2nd foul as a FK

UP until the advantage is realized a foul by the attacking team could be viewed as misconduct!
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Petr
There is great skill in playing advantage. Very satisfying when advantage is played to the benefit of the fouled against team.
Now there are many factors to be considered and I list here a few
1 Location on the FOP.
2 Can the team use the advantage
3. Would the team prefer a free kick
4 Attitude of the players to advantage. Does it most times prefer to play on.
5 Mood the game and time in the game.
In your scenarios the decision rest on whether the advantage has been fully realised or squandered. I can envisage situations working both ways where the team gives the advantage away or indeed a situation where there was no real advantage in the first place.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Petr,
While it it's not from the Laws of the Game, the concept contained in this sentence does seem to correspond to a common practice regarding the advantage clause, that is applied by many referees.

That is to say, if the player had a perfectly good advantage but then squandered it for no good reason and not because of anything an opponent did, many referees would not then go back to the original offence.

If however the foul for which the advantage was being applied, contributes to the loss of the advantage (and this becomes apparent fairly rapidly) most referees would probably call the play back and penalise the prior offence.

For me, this is still to do with whether the advantage was realised or not and this judgement should be made in and of itself, regardless of any subsequent foul, which is more or less irrelevant to the question of the advantage.