Question Number: 16059

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 7/17/2007

RE: Rec Under 19

Steve of Toronto, On Cda asks...

This question is a follow up to question 15757

Upon further reflection of your answers, I think you all gave cop-out answers.

I don't think it is "Common-knowledge" that a team plays down a player for player ejection.

Of all other major team sports I can think of, (hockey, baseball, football (North America), basketball) all of these sports have rules that can get players ejected from the game. None of them play a player down. Even hockey puts another player in the penalty box in place of the ejected player and is allowed to return after set amount of time.

I do think it should be mentioned

Answer provided by Referee Jon Sommer

I'm sorry to say this on a predominately American site, but hockey (ice I presume you mean) baseball and American football are not major team sports of the world...they might be in America but they are not world games. You mention Hockey, actually field Hockey is the world version of this sport, and a red card in that means that the team plays down a player. As it does in Rugby. Football (English football and what I very reluctantly call soccer) is the world game. Let us look at what i consider to be a world sport...a sport that holds a world cup that teams across the world compete in. Not a world series that pretty much just America and Canada compete in, and fool themselves into thinking they are world champions at it. Football has the biggest single sporting event in the world. Rugby too has a world cup with teams across the world competing, even cricket has one. If FIFA wrote down everything that is taken as common knowledge, they would be wasting lots of trees and the laws of the game would be bigger than a Harry Potter novel.

Take our word for it, a player dismissed and shown the red card makes his team play a man down.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Goodness, Steve! What an interesting question - because of course, nowhere in the Laws of the Game does it actually state a player sent off may not be replaced during the game. It is just one of those facts anybody who has ever watched, played or had the privilege to referee knows about the game. As Jon says, not everything is written down (hallelujah!). Think about it. Where in the Laws does it say a referee should call every foul that happens? It doesn't, and we don't, thank goodness, or the game could never be played. Sometimes the Law indicates what is meant to be already understood by the other things it does actually say. An example in point is the Law says a substitute may be used to replace a player who is sent off before the game begins - which presumes you already know they can't be replaced after the game starts. It is one of those lovely little quirks about the game.
So why can't the miscreant who gets a red card be replaced? Think about it this way - a game has 11 spots for each team to fill with a player, and if one of those players is sent off, then the spot is eliminated for that game. It is one of the reasons why red cards are not thrown about willy nilly (normally). It is also the reason why referees who are any good are not slaves to the Laws but masters of them, using them like a fine musical instrument to get the most out of the players for the sake of the game.
Substitutes exist to replace a player legitimately holding a spot on the field, or as noted above, in the exceptional case of a named starter being sent off before the game begins. Because the game has not yet begun, the spot still exists and can thus be filled.
Now, be good, or I shall have to perform an expelling charm on you!

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Well Steve you're entitled to your opinion. I'll offer this about Football. The Game was codified in the mid 19th century to bring order. Before the first Laws each school had its own rules and playing away was a trying exercise. Football was, and still is, here to teach young men and women how to play as a team, how to conform to written Laws, how to act around an authority figure and to be an outlet for youthful exuberance.

In the 19th century crime was something one didn't get involved in and if you did the punishments were harsh, very harsh indeed.

Because Football asked players to play within the Laws punishment was harsh when there was a player in breach of them. The most important part of any team competition is the team itself. That's why a player, in breach of the Law, causes a free kick to be awarded against his team, not against him. There were certain breaches that were considered intolerable and those breaches of the Law were cause for a player to be sent-off his side, to take no further part in the match. In those days there were no substitutes so there was no pool of ready replacements, you played short a man. The same held true for an injury, as it does today when all substitutes have been used.

The singular most dishonourable thing a player may do is be sent-off. This dishonour carried with it the peer pressure from the rest of his team because his position went empty. Notice in the Laws there is mentioned when a player is sent-off he is to leave the vicinity of the field and the technical area? It used to say, in Law III, International FA Board Decision 1, A player who has been ordered off after play has started may not be replaced.

This became part of Law 3 IFAB Decision 1 in 1937 though it was part of Football well before that. Each of the games you refer to are ones that came about after Association Football and Rugby Football [the kicking game and the handling game] split in the early 19th century. Those games were codified in America to conform to American and Canadian ways of thinking. I'll bet when you learned those games your father told you what the rules were. It is the same with Football only the telling of the Laws started with Great-great-great grandfathers. There is an historical tradition, a word of mouth tradition, with this Game that there isn't with any other game. We, in Football hold The Game is such high esteem that we tend to accept the historical significance of some things simply because they are and always have been that way.

Referees are the keepers of the history and traditions of The Game, not the coaches, players or spectators. It's the referee who is tasked, by the Law makers, with enforcing the Laws of the Game.

You state you are a referee. Enforce the Laws of the Game as Law 5 orders you to. If you find yourself unable to agree with them try finding something else to do with your time and don't dare accuse us of being cop-outs because we answered your question in a manner you don't agree with.

Regards,