Question Number: 34573

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 4/24/2022

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

Hello,

I have another 'special' situation from the Czech league :-)

Situation: Goalkeeper catches the ball in his own penalty area. Teammates and opponents start pushing. The referee blows his whistle. He gives one yellow card on each side. The decision is dropped ball for the goalkeeper.

Is it good decision? Didn't this disappear from the rules a few years ago? :-)

Thank you very much!

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Petr
Interesting one.
You are indeed correct and the current wording is that the referee ** punishes the more serious offence, in terms of sanction, restart, physical severity and tactical impact, when more than one offence occurs at the same time**

The challenge is implementing this in a game situation and most referees will rarely be confronted with simultaneous offences. Most times one will happen before the other which is the offence that is punished.

In your example both would be likely direct free kick offences, both may have had the same physical severity etc. So the *best* decision in the opinion of the referee was probably a dropped ball.

In a recent game I saw a referee send off a player for retaliation as that was the only offence he saw. He missed the first offence which caused the retaliation. In some ways it was somewhat *unfair* and I suppose in your example it would have been unfair to go with a penalty kick or a direct free kick particularly if it was not seen properly. The dropped ball was the more neutral restart so it may have been a fairly smart decision by the referee to stop the situation escalating and at the same time not making a decision favouring either side other than giving the ball back to the goalkeeper who had it anyway.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Petr.
The LOTG does call for a foul and we are to punish the more serious infraction should there be a simultaneous incident, however., I hold the opinion a DB is a good solution because of the situation & location of this dance mixer especially when it was difficult to determine who led with the first movement?
The keeper has the ball IN his hands, IN his area and is prevented from releasing it. Was he even marginally bumped?
A DFK against the keeper or his team inside the PA is a PK as opposed to a free-kick out, on the ground, if the attackers were held responsible. SURELY a more serious OUTCOME!

In this case, the referee saw a NEED to intervene, I believe it likely he was fully aware that the keeper had the ball inside the PA, so he likely knew the DB restart for a referee stoppage to show cards to both teams would simply revert things to the way there were AFTER he cautioned the miscreants involved in their silly dance!
ALL DBs inside a PA go to the keeper! Based on how you described the event the referee used good judgment to put a cork back in the bottle and save the next dance for later!


Cheers