Question Number: 15032

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 3/23/2007

Gil Acedo of Pasadena, CA USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 6355

Laura Davis was asking [in 6355] why the referee didn't apply advantage when an attacker was guilty of offside while the GK was in possession of the ball. I have many times waved the AR's flag down if the ball had gone directly to the GK and allowed the keeper to punt the ball out instead of awardign an IFK; unless the location of the proper restart for the violation would have been far enough downfield that the defenders are better off taking the IFK, say right near the half-way line.

I will say though, and this may be nothing more than a difference in semantics, that a referee can apply advantage only during violations of Law 12, at least according to the USSF (I don't believe this is true outside of the US). If a referee doesn't stop play to punish a violation of Law 11,the referee is not applying advantage, he is simply not whistling the foul, he is letting it go.

Any way, for what it's worth. Thanks for listening.

Gil Acedo

Answer provided by Referee Ben Mueller

First off...offside is NOT considered a foul. Next you are correct that referees can only apply advantage to fouls listed in Law 12. Keep in mind though that if the keeper gets the ball first, then chances are the offside positioned player never got involved in the play. They are urging AR's to keep that flag down until it is 100% clear that the offside player should be penalized for being offside.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Gil good to see you back and reading the data base. This question deals with two aspects of advantage.

The first is perceived advantage! We perceive advantage when the referee refuses the assistant's advice to penalise an offside positioned player. What has happened is the referee has seen no offside offence, the offside player neither interfered with play nor interfered with an opponent nor gained advantage. What he says when he waves the flag down is "Thanks, but there is no offence, carry on".

The second part of the question was the coach thought there was advantage to be had and the referee didn't. This is a fact regarding play and you know who wins that argument.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Gil,
good to hear from you! The Law 12 advantage to my mind makes sense as you can take the laws where the Q@A state advantage is present relate directly to law 12.

We can use trivial or doubtful as an excuse for a few and consider law 11 as not a foul but an technical infringment that in the opinion of the referee whose criteria was not truly met! iF a whistle goes the referee is obligated to restart advantage is no longer possible until after the restart!

Semantics aside advantage as applicable to law 5 is a consideration we apply to every situation in which one team unfairly robs the other of a fair challenge or opportunity to continue to retain posession of the ball and attack or score.

I might point out we can NOT apply advantage to ball in or out of play or an incorrect throw or an incorrectly taken free kick yet a law 3 or law 4 or law 13 has within its mandate to wait until the next stoppage as well as direct intervention.

Law 14 has advantage actually coded into the penalty kick laws by stating when we can or can not ignore an infraction.

The caution and send off code contained within law 12 applies to many other laws as misconduct.
Cheers