Question Number: 34006

Law 8 - The Start and Restart of Play 9/27/2020

RE: Rec Under 11

Joe Schmitt of LOUISVILLE, KY United States asks...

So with the new law that the team that touches the ball last will get to take the dropped ball. Does touch mean possession or does touch mean just touched it? Had that issue at a U10 Rec game on Saturday where the defender and attacker were tussling for a ball and the attacker fell over the defender as the defender barely got his foot on the ball (mis-hit but ball went to right so you could tell he hit it with some force). Anyway, attacking team got the ball immediately and ref whistled for the injury and gave dropped ball to the attacking team. He said they had possession at time of injury which clearly wasn't the case. Just interested on your alls interpretation of the rule.
Thanks.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Joe,
The law on this says that the referee drops the ball for a player of the team that last touched the ball before play was stopped. So is it is only a touch that is required, not possession.

However, based on the law wording, who gets the dropped ball depends on the point at which the referee decided to stop play, rather than when the injury occurred. You said that the ball had already gone to the attacking team before the referee blew the whistle. So if the attacking team were there last ones to touch the ball before the referee decided to stop play, they would be the team to get the dropped ball. If the referee decided to stop play before the attacker touched the ball though, the defenders would be the recipients of the dropped ball.

(I should just mention that if the ball is either located in, or last touched in, the penalty area, the ball is dropped for the defending team's goalkeeper).

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Joe
If we look to the reason why this Law was amended it was because of unsavory situations occurring in some so called fair play restarts where there were confrontations and manufactured restarts that were exploited unfairly such as kicking the ball out for a throw-in deep in the opponents’ half with a high press afterwards.
Returning the ball to the team that last played it restores what was ‘lost’ when play was stopped, except in the penalty area where it is simpler to return the ball to the goalkeeper. To prevent that team gaining an unfair advantage, all players of both teams, except the player receiving the ball, must be at least 4m (4.5 yds) away.
In your situation the referee stopped play to deal with an injury to a defender. One could assume that when you said that the attacking team got the ball immediately with an attack about to happen that was the moment when play was stopped and therefore the attacking team was entitled to the ball back in that position.
Under the old way there probably would have been shouts of stop the play and the ball then kicked back to the attacking team downfield. I have seen these situation end up back with the goalkeeper in Underage which is a big disadvantage.
In the new law all that happened in your situation was that the play was recreated as it was with the attacking team with the ball on the attack.