Question Number: 17437

Law 5 - The Referee 10/21/2007

RE: Rec Under 10

Margarita Lagomarsino of Saddle Brook , New Jersey United States asks...

If a ref is not in a position to have seen a play between two players can he make a call based on what he assumed happened

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

A referee with integrity calls what he sees. W can not call what we miss. Our ARs or 4th can help us if present as other neutral sources of information and we can take thie input as our own decision.

Does an occassional gut instinct allow a referee to interpret the facts?

As in he turns around one player is on the ground with a bloody nose the opponent standing over him has skinned knuckles? Rarely but if I hear a hawk phooey and a scream of rage I look see player a with a gob of spittle running down the side of his face and a nearby opponent who will not look me in the face. I say "WHY on earth did you do that? " I do not say "Did you do that? We can use body language and some tell tale things to draw conclusion but if we only suspectwho is to say we just missed a retailation to something we already missed?
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Usually we don't punish something we didn't see, we use assistants and the fourth official to fill in gaps and we ask them for their input when we know something happened. Once we have more information we can come to a better decision.

Regards,