Question Number: 33830

Law 14 - The Penalty kick 1/7/2020

RE: city league Adult

Gargy of Haifa, Haifa Israel asks...

Hello,

I have a question regarding a penalty kick during the game.
The law says that:

the player taking the penalty kick or a team-mate offends:
¢if the ball enters the goal, the kick is retaken
¢if the ball does not enter the goal, the referee stops play and restarts with an indirect free kick

My question is about a situation in which a teammate of the player taking the penalty kick offends, by entering the penalty area before the kick was taken.
In that case, the keeper stops the penalty, but the same player who took the penalty kick gets to the rebound and scores.

In that case, actually a goal was not scored directly from the penalty kick, so should the penalty kick be retaken, or the game should be restarted with an indirect free kick?

Thank you

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Gargy,
If the referee a) detects the encroachment, b) decides to penalise it and c) there is no detected offence by the opponents then yes, the restart would be an indirect free kick to the defending team. In the real world, as ref McHugh points out, it is relatively unlikely that all three conditions will be true, especially the lack of an offence by the defending team (it is almost always the case that both teams encroach) and the actual decision to penalise, for the reasons he mentions.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Gargy
Based on the wording of the question the correct answer in Law is that the goal is disallowed and the restart is an IDFK from where the encroachment took place.
In reality it is not so easy as the referee may not see the clear encroachment by just one player, there can be encroachment by the defending team as well including the goalkeeper moving off the line, in which case it is a retake as both teams have offended.
I would say that a referee might also see encroachment by a player as maybe trifling and/or doubtful in which case the referee may simply allow the goal.