Question Number: 15910

Law 5 - The Referee 6/28/2007

RE: Recreational and Competitive Under 16

Owen Macri of Richmond Hill, Ontario Canada asks...

This question is a follow up to question 14719

I am a player as well as a referee. If a situation occured where a player from team A was injured and a player from team B kicked the ball out of the field of play to assist the injured player obviously the restart would be a throw in. While playing I have observed referees for example forcing the player from team A to throw the ball to the player from team B and forcing other players from team A to give the player from team B the advantage as a "thank you" for stopping the play to help the injured player. I have also seen other situations where the correct restart was a drop ball and the referee forced players from team B away from the ball giving team A the advantage because the player was injured. As a referee I would never dream of doing this as there is nothing in the laws of the game that allow this to happen and it is unfair in my opinion. As a player I have only witnessed this a few times and have never gotten the opportunity to speak to the referee about it.

I understand it is "nice" to do this, but is this proper in the laws and spirit of the game? Is it proper conduct for the referee? If a player were to refuse to remove himself from the play to give the other team the advantage, at the request of the referee" would this be any type of infraction as the laws state that players can be anywhere within the field of play and the laws don't state that the referee has the power to tell people where to be, other than in the situation of penalty kicks, kick-offs, free kicks (10 yard rule) etc.?

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

The referee cannot force a player to throw or kick a ball to any person or location, nor can he prohibit players from taking part in a dropped ball. Nor can he penalize in any way someone who will not comply with such instructions.

Traditionally when play is stopped to deal with an injury, the players take it upon themselves to restore possession to the team that had it. This tradition is much stronger in Europe. In fact there was a game a couple years ago in England that was voluntarily replayed because one player didn't observe the tradition. The winning team scored a goal when one of their players didn't realize the throw-in was meant to go harmlessly to the opposing goalkeeper. That team asked the league for a replay.

Since many players in the US and evidently Canada don't know this tradition, referees attempt to teach it. Sometimes that goes overboard, when the referee attempts to force it as in your games. Or in the case of US High School rules, where they took away the dropped ball restart and replaced it with an IFK.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Footballers are gentlemen and usually do gentlemanly things when faced with a choice.

If you feel strongly about who should get the ball when you drop it there is a solution... Drop the ball, the "wrong" quickly takes it. OOPS, the ball didn't hit the ground, tweet, do again. Before you drop it look at the player you don't want to get it and say let the ball hit the ground, please. Drop it when you get to the comma. Guess what?

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Jon Sommer

Please can people stop kicking the ball out of play...it causes tense situations that can escalate. The referee judges if a players injury is such that he needs to stop the game, if not play on. As Ref Voshol says there has been many problems at the highest level in England with players kicking the ball out, and now players are told to play on until the referee decides to stop, something he will not do unless he feels the player is seriously injured or a head injury has occured.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

I can barely tolerate the kick out by a player when an opponent is down.

However, if you decide to kick a ball out of play to stop play because you think one of your own players is hurt so badly that his life is in jeopardy and the referee has failed to act immediately when that player arises suddenly and resumes play ask yourself when you kicked the ball was it because he was hurt or because you felt you were playing a man short and could be in trouble? Giving the ball back may hardly be the opposition's first response!

There are many collisions, challenges and tackles that hurt but players can shake them off and continue.

We can as referees ask, Are you ok? Can you continue?
Up Up Up, continue, no time to lay around!
There is often a desire to use a knock for recovery or waste time or exaggerate an injury in the hopes of pulling a card these are cautionable incursions into ethical behaviors and are seriously hampering the efficiency of referees to discern between what is real and what is imaginary!
Now if players wants to further aggravate the situation by deciding to stop play themselves they have effectively dissented a referee's decision.

Do NOT misunderstand, we see, unconscious, blood, hear a bone break we are stopped immediately! If we see a serious injury or at the u littlies a reason to stop play so a player can get a hug it is a decision that we weigh in on the immediate need to blow a whistle or can we see a shot occur first or is that ball headed into touch? A knock or a suspicious collapse we might yell are you ok to see if we get a response but a quick whistle likely if we do not get a satisfactory reply.

If a referee stops play while the ball is in play it could be that ball is in that team's possession in a neutral or open position or in the opponent's possession.

If a player kicks a ball into touch to stop play because an opponent is injured, his team had ball possession and he gave that up! He considered what he did as fair play, hopefully not to show up the referee. In this unwritten tradition it DEMANDS that ball be returned to them upon the restart no matter what restart it is.

If you watched the Holland Portugal match at the last World Cup you will see where this TRADITION and the DEMAND led to a caution against DECO as he enforced that tradition.

Most teams will honor this to a point. They are not likely to return the ball to a position that they can not defend or allows the opponent a scoring opportunity.

Hence if that throw in can be launched back towards the opponet's keeper that ball has been returned and not in a position likely to be scored on.

If the restart was a drop-ball the same again opportunity to kick it back out for a throw in or back towards the keeper are often two crafted choices.

Most often the team will indicate we will return the ball so on a drop ball the opposing team will back off or on a throw in the ball might be allowed to come in to an unmarked player and then kicked directly back into touch.

When a keeper has ball possession if we stop play it it not uncommon to drop the ball back to the keeper with no opponent in the mix

Any referee who feels he must educate players as to ethical conduct best remember he is a neutral figure not allowed to play a part in tactical decisions.

If the restart occurs from a drop ball or the result of one team putting the ball out of play to help an opponent the referee COULD offer to point out a resolution for consideration at the youth level what he cannot do is say you can not participate at the drop ball or you must give this ball back at the restart.

We can drop the ball to one person, we can allow the keeper to crouch down and place his hands on the ground right where the ball will drop if it within his own penalty area. I have asked the keeper in matches where as a single official I am dropping the ball "You have a few more than 6 seconds this time I need to get up field ok?"
I have suggested that when an opponent offers to do the "right thing"
to the player, that player could take him at his word because if the opposition does not do as they said they in fact deceived me the referee and brought the game into disrepute and I cannot allow that!
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Ben Mueller

I agree with you on this. The referee is there to referee the match and NOT to tell players how to play. With that said, I will not tell the players to do something other than to play clean, keep hands down, wait for whistle, etc, etc, etc. Also, on a drop ball...the referee does not have the right to tell a player to back off as both teams are entitled to the drop ball. Also, if the referee believes the player is seriously injured, play stops immediatly. Else, we wait until next stoppage. The sooner the players learn this, the better.

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 15925