Question Number: 17407

Law 5 - The Referee 10/20/2007

joe of scs, mi usa asks...

Defender hands the ball, and the ball is up in the air, at the same time as iam done blowing the whistle, the forward kicks the ball into the net. Should i have called the foul. or the goal ? I called a goal. After the game the coach asked why, and i explained that i played advantage. But he said that i blew the whistle before the ball went in. Did i make the right call ?
Joe

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Once you blow the whistle, play is dead. You cannot apply advantage during a dead ball situation. This is why referees must learn to swallow/hold the whistle for just a few seconds, two or three, to see what happens. It helps to avoid what happened in your game. You'll do better next time, Joe. Most of us don't make the same mistakes more than once or twice.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Joe,
the whistle signals a stoppage. If you do as you are required in law the defender likely MUST be sent off if he prevented the goal by the deliberate use of his hands, or a caution for the USB action at the very least, you restart with a PK assuming this occurred inside the penalty area or a DFK if it was outside. Just so you understand if you allowed the goal you could still caution the defender for the USBof trying to stop it.

As for a mistake you are in exalted company if you watched the Champions League a few years back you saw the best in the world do exactly the same, hit the whistle early, and took back the goal and sent off the player. He could, if he had swallowed his whistle, (a polite term for delay) anticipated the advantage in allowing play to continue, watched a nice goal and not be forced to have sent off a man reducing them to 10. Instead it was what it was and on TV in front of millions he did what he had to do because he had stopped play.

Yet in one old Whitecap game in Vancouver BC we saw our referee do exactly as you did and the two teams accepted it even though he was grilled mercilessly in the post game by his instructors.
Learn to realize that a wait and see anticipate approach can give you more time to make a decision. Application of advantage allows 2 to 3 extra seconds to see if we re-bite that apple. Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Joe, lets go to the match. You see the handling and also see the ball moving to another attacker. Right there and then you MUST signal, call out advantage and choose what that advantage will be. You do this so you can tell whether or not the advantage you signaled for has materialized. This is so you may go back to the original offence should it not materialize.

Granted this is a most difficult thing to do in your first years as referee, usually we reward ourselves for seeing the foul play by blowing the whistle and taking a break from all that running. As the referee matures he learns sometimes playing advantage and getting a goal is a far better thing to do than most things you do on a match. Trouble is it takes MANY instances of doing exactly what you did to learn what playing advantage just happens to be. This is something that's not able to be taught -- you just gotta learn. Some folks are not capable of learning at this level of sophistication either!

Playing advantage well means recognizing foul play instantly, knowing instantly what every player on the park accepts or does not accept and having the situational awareness to know, without doubt, where and whom the ball is going. Only then will you be able to play advantage. Note: when you play advantage you are the only person on the planet who knows what you played for and whether or not the advantage you played for was realized! That's when your integrity is tested...

Regards,