Question Number: 22298

Law 7 - Match Duration 10/19/2009

RE: Competive Under 19

David of Inglewood, CA U.S asks...

Can a referee end the game when a player is right in front of the golie or close to the penalty box with just 1 minute of overtime.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Of course. The referee is responsible for keeping the time in a game. She may need to add time for any number of reasons. Added time is not announced normally, except perhaps in televised games, and even that is not set in stone. If an injury happens in added time, more time will be added.

When the referee believes all time lost has been added back and played, then the game is over. Referees are not accurate to the second, but we are generally pretty close. It is most likely that the referee had already added as much time as he felt was reasonable, and couldn't add any more.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi David
The referee is in sole charge of the time and when the referee decides that time has elapsed that is the end of the game.
Referees have a different approach to ending the match. Personally I don't believe with added time it is possible to be accurate in the same way as a game that has a match clock such as basketball, rugby etc. As a result a few seconds is not a huge amount of time to be found/lost and if a player was in front of goal about to score I would allow play to continue. I know other referees that as soon as the alarm sounds on their stopwatch blow the whistle for full time, no matter what. Blowing up in these situation though causes ill feeling particularly in tight matches. Howard Webb, a FIFA ref, in an EPL game recently blew up on a breakaway and it caused a really nasty scene after the game. My policy is to allow the play to end or blow the match up before it gets there in the 1st place. Other refs blow when the watch goes to zero and they are entitled to do that.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Absolutely! The referee is perfectly entitled to end the game while the ball is in midair heading straight towards an empty goal.

Many referees choose to avoid controversy by waiting until the ball is in a more neutral territory before stopping play; however this has no basis in law, although calculating stoppage time can tend to be somewhat imprecise.