Question Number: 33598

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 8/26/2019

RE: competitive Under 17

Robert of Jacksonville, fl Duval asks...

Team A is attacking in the opponents half (let's say half way between half way line and goal line). In the other half of the field, a Player on Team B punches a player on Team A and injures him (violent conduct). AR sees the incident and waves his/her flag to get the Referee's attention. If upon seeing this, should the referee stop play? Let's say play is stopped, where is the restart? From an older Advice to Referees: 'The target of the striking determines the location of the foul, and thus also the restart.' But if applied, this would disadvantage the attacking team by moving the play backward. I would appreciate your comments.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Robert,
As ref McHugh states, the restart should be where the offence took place. This is a general principle throughout the Laws except for a few clearly specified exceptions, of which this is not one.

As for stopping play when the team offended against has an attacking opportunity, the law is quite clear, stating that:

''Advantage should not be applied in situations involving serious foul play, violent conduct or a second cautionable offence unless there is a clear opportunity to score a goal.''

So if all that is happening is an attack and there is no clear goal scoring opportunity, play should be stopped. This might seem a little unfair on the attacking team but as my colleague also points out, failing to penalise a violent conduct offence within fairly short order can have highly undesirable consequences and should be avoided.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Robert
The restart is from where the violent conduct offence took place. Now unless there is an immediate goalscoring opportunity within a second or so the advice is NOT to play advantage on violent conduct.
I can assure you that while it might disadvantage the fouled against team, when there is violent conduct it must be dealt with swiftly. Failure to do so is likely to result in perhaps a much more serious incident.
Now my experience is that when there is off the ball VC the attention of the players and the game will be drawn to the incident and what is happening elsewhere in the game will be secondary. The referee and players will be distracted towards the commotion going on behind them so in essence the referee will have little option but to stop the game and deal with it.
At best with an immediate goal opportunity time might allow a shot to be got off or a cross and a header shot etc yet beyond that play should be stopped.