Question Number: 33431

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 6/10/2019

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

Hello,

my question is about advantage and place of restart.

Situation:
Player A is fouled and passes ball to his teammate B. Defender touches this ball and at the same time (or after a while) fouls player B. Where is place of restart?

In general, does it matter how events follow each other? Or, when does the advantage end?

Thank you very much!

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Petr,
we restart according to why we stop play choosing the restart based on what occurred.
Advantage is only considered by an aware referee when a foul that results in a free kick occurs during active play. Within a small window of time (1 to 5 seconds) we EXPLORE NOT stopping play, because of the possibility the aggrieved team is MUCH better off in our allowing play to continue than to stop play and award them a free kick.

Situation foul A: we are observing the potential of advantage when-
Situation foul B: a NEW 2nd foul occurs

Think on this the first defender commits a tripping foul inside the PA, the ball is passed or rolls favorably to a 2nd attacker back outside the PA. He looks very likely to get a shot off but a 2nd defender fouls him outside the PA preventing a clear goal scoring opportunity.

So the 2nd foul is only a DFK where as the first one was a PK.
Which restart is more advantageous?
Yes the PK.
We go back and award the PK for the first foul. IF there is any cardable misconduct with the 2nd foul THAT is still punished as is if there is any misconduct off the 1st foul . We can do so because there was CLEARLY NO better opportunity than that PK opportunity. We chose not to immediately stop play on the off chance the the 2nd attacker might score but we go back to that first foul. ..

Same situation except the first foul is OUTSIDE the PA but the ball runs on ahead favorably for an ONSIDE attacker to have a go at goal from INSIDE the PA & a 2nd foul prevents the opportunity with the ball being subsequently cleared.
There was no advantage for a shot but is not the 2nd foul INSIDE the PA of greater weight than the DFK outside?
You bet, a PK is a far better opportunity .
Thus we jump ahead to that 2nd foul, restart with a PK but first we take care of any cardable misconduct on the 1st or 2nd foul.

Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Petr
In your example the restart is in the more advantageous location. In general it probably is location foul B which could have a decent distance advantage for the fouled against team. Other times location foul B could be inside the penalty area so obviously a penalty kick will be much more advantageous.
If foul location B is a more disadvantageous location then the referee can and should go back to location foul A. Probably no real advantage was available in that situation anyway.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Petr,
The restart for any offence on the field of play, is where the offence occurred. So where the restart is, depends on which offence the referee is penalising. Now, when applying the advantage clause, the referee can choose to penalise the original offence - or not, as the case may be. If the referee penalises the original offence, the restart is from where that offence occurred and if they penalise the subsequent offence it's from that location.

So the question becomes, if there are two offences, either of which could potentially be penalised, which should the referee choose? As my colleagues have pointed out, in an advantage situation, it should be the one that is more advantageous.

You also ask, when does advantage end. The law says that the referee can go back to the original offence so long as they do so ''within a few seconds'' so it ends either when those few seconds are up or when the advantage is realised (in both cases, this is as judged by the referee).

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

See Question: 33440