Question Number: 17971

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 11/20/2007

RE: Select Under 19

Tom Le of San Jose, CA USA asks...

I have three questions:
1) Can you award a direct free kick in penalty area? is it a infringement in penalty area constitutes DFK (not serious enough for PK)
2) If defender jumps up to the air and uses his hand to attempt to prevent an attack toward his team goal but he missed. Is that unsporting behavior, and yellow card should be shown to him?
3) How can you record own goal (in the box of his team or the box of his opponent team?)

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

1) Tom, if you are a referee, you must know that all direct free kick offenses committed in the penalty area result in a penalty kick. If it's not "serious enough for a PK" perhaps it wasn't a foul in the first place.

2) Are we talking a "swing and a miss"? If there's no contact with the ball, there should be no need for anything more than a quiet word with the player. "You know what would have happened if you had actually touched that ball, right?" If the player contacts the ball in an attempt to keep it out of the goal, but the ball goes in anyway, then you can caution for the attempt to deny a goal.

3) One goal for the opponents' side. If the league asks you to act as a statistician as well as a referee, and credit goals to particular players, the common practice is to give it to the last attacker who touched the ball.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Well, I disagree with Ref Voshol on #1, but only because I'm pulling his leg. A referee CAN award a direct free kick in the penalty area, but ONLY for the defending team. Any DFK offense against the defense converts instantly to a PK, which you will find in Law 14. As for #2 & 3, Ref Voshol says it plainly.