Question Number: 16472

Law 3 - Number of Players 8/28/2007

RE: Competitive Under 10

Dave Trepex of Portland, OR USA asks...

I was reffing a U10 game during a tournament. Team A had been dominating the game and has a 3 to 1 lead. The ball goes out and it's a throw in for Team A. Coach for Team B asks for a sub. The teams had just subbed a couple minutes ago and there is only one minute left in the game. I tell the coach there is only one minute left and tell player A to go ahead and take the throw. Team A scores again in the last minute. Coach B yells at me that I cost him a goal because I denied his request for a sub, that player was tired, yada yada. He asks me twice whether that is a rule that you can't sub in the last minute. I told him I can deny a substitution if it's delaying the game. Now I suppose I could have allowed the sub and added on time. But given that this was a tournament game, there is not much extra time between games. Did I make a fair call? Should I have cautioned the coach? If I caution him, what exactly do I say? Oh, I forgot to add this most important bit: Tournament rules stated "Free substitution will be allowed...any time the ball is out of play... A ref may deny a sub request if the ref considers it to be an intentional plan to disrupt the play, or an attempt to run off an excessive amount of time."

Answer provided by Referee Steve Montanino

Well right up to the last sentence I was going to rip into you a little bit. Under normal circumstances a referee has no power to legally deny a properly requested substitution that is ready to enter the match.

However, if the tournament rules are as you say, then you have done precisely what the tournament has asked you to do. If it was your opinion that the coach was trying to kill off the last few moments of the match with that sub then you were supposed to do exactly what you did. So good for you, that is what this tournament wanted. However, this rule is counter what is normally accepted, and it is within their right to do this, but you must remember that the majority of contests are not like this at all.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

You said the ball went to touch for throw-in and then one of the coaches asks for a substitute, correct? If that's the case you have every right to demand he follow the procedure outlined in Law 3 and deny the substitution at that time. Very few referees in America know the proper procedure to substitute and they usually let the coaches take the lead on these things. Not good.

In the tournament there was a caveat to the procedure and it precluded time wasting on each stoppage. You had two reasons to deny the coaches efforts at wasting time at that tournament.

Regards,

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

See Question: 16509