Question Number: 33859

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 1/29/2020

RE: Adult

Dimitrios Protopapas of Limassol , Cyprus asks...

Hello there, I have a question concerning the Cyprus cup match between Apoel vs Apollon taken place on Wednesday January 29.Was it a penalty or not at 0:47 of VIDEO REFERENCE https://youtu.be/bLEZ_h8614
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkLEZ_h8614&t=0m50s
Thx a lot from Demetris, Limassol, Cyprus

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Demetris,
Tough one for me. The defender does plant the leg in front of the attacker's leg - and there is definitely contact.
However, the manner of falling is suspicious to me. The left foot simply stops fully and then there is contact with the shin with the player falling over. However, why would the left foot stop?
The player would be continuing his stride with the left foot coming off the ground. There's absolutely no reason for the left foot to completely stop. The only situation where that would occur is if that foot was hooked by the foot of an opponent. Here, with the contact higher on the shin, the left foot would be coming off the ground in stride.
So, that alone tells me that this player has taken a dive.
But there's a bigger tell - and it's the other foot. You can see that the player points the right foot down to drag the toe along the ground - and this actually occurs before the contact. The only reason a player would do this is to fall over - you can't keep your balance after doing this.
Slowing it right down, it appears that he also starts to tuck into his legs and fall down just before the contact, but that's very fine timing and probably the weaker of the 3 arguments in this particular case.
So, I have absolute certainty that this is a dive. I think (I might be wrong) that the penalty wasn't given, which would be good - but especially with the dragging right foot, this one needs a yellow card.
The crazy thing about this is that given the defender's leg was right in front of him, had he continued his stride normally I think it's likely he would have been genuinely fouled.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Dimitrios
Not a foul for me. The attacker in my opinions manufactures the contact and trails his left leg into the defender making contact. In fact it looks to me from behind the goal that he is going to ground before contact through the movement of his right foot which is dragged along the ground in an unnatural way!
On that basis I would go as far as to say that there is an element of simulation here in that the player attempts to deceive the referee by making it look like a foul rather than through any real foul contact by the defender.
I have been around the game for a long time and I know that players try to *make* fouls. A single referee on his own could look at this and say that there is a foul based on the fact that the defender plants his foot in an attempt to play the ball, does not get to the ball and he might see it as in the path of the attacker, causing a trip.
I am unsure if the game had VAR yet on review if I was the referee I would not be giving it and I'm strongly thinking about a caution.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Dimitrios,
sorry your link was unavailable to me here in Canada I will look to youtube later. Yet if the referee SAW it as a no PK then it remains no PK whether it should be or not is always an opinion not a fact.
That said our colleague Ref McHugh found this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkLEZ_h8614&t=0m50s
We are all thinking based on the angle of view and timing this was a sell to draw the foul more than a full on fault fail by the defender. It would have been interesting to see what reaction the attacker might have to a caution for USB?
Cheers