Question Number: 16867

Law 3 - Number of Players 9/24/2007

RE: Competitive Under 19

Rick Czechowski of San Diego, CA USA asks...

If a coach chooses to request a substitution when the other team is about to throw and, once his substitute(s) is/are off and his player(s) is/are on the pitch, should I then assume that the substitution is complete and then signal to the thrower to 'PLAY" via voice (or whistle, if preferred), or must I wait until the oncoming players(s) is/are in the same general position as the players who came off the pitch?

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

The question should not be do I let the new player get to where he needs to be or not. The main question is why did I let the coach interrupt his opponent's throw-in by notifying me he intended to substitute?

You'll note Law 3 starts the substitution procedure with this: the referee is informed before any proposed substitution is made. The coach told you at the time the substitution was made. Believe it or not there is a reason for this! It prevents taking away a scoring opportunity that a quick restart might offer. If the referee doesn't see this he is a contributor to denying a goal to the other side.

Follow the substitution procedure to the letter and this will never happen to you again.

Now to the answer, should the substitution procedure be followed to the letter delay the restart until your assistant has returned to his position and [because referees are generally nice people] the new player stops running. When he does that he's where he needs to be and you can whistle for the restart. Yup whistle, FIFA in their Additional Instructions and Guidance [q.v. 2007/8 LotG] have directed times to use a the whistle to restart play, a completed substitution is one of those times.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

If subs are allowed at any stoppage a coach may request a sub but the referee has no obligation to stop a quick restart by the opponents here or at any other restart. Once you allow a substitution you may whistle for play to restart as soon as the sub becomes a player but customarily we wait a few seconds for the now player to approach the part of the field he is to be in.

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

See Question: 16970