Question Number: 23112

Law 7 - Match Duration 4/13/2010

RE: Premier Under 13

Ed Laizer of Metairie, Louisiana USA asks...

The championship game of a U-12 premier tournament goes into overtime tied 1-1. Two five minute periods are to be played (no golden goal), followed by penalty kicks if still tied. At the end of the first five minute overtime period, one team scores a goal. The referee goes to record the player number on his scorecard, looks at his watch and realizes that he has allowed the first overtime to go about six minutes and thirty seconds. After some confusion, he waves off the goal. The second OT period is played, the game ends 1-1, and the team that had its goal disallowed goes on to lose in PK's 4-3 on the 6th PK. Was waiving off the goal the right call?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Ed
This is a fundamental error on behalf of the referee. One of his key tasks is to act as a timekeeper and IMO referees should invest in the best equipment available to help do this. I have a professional referee's watch that vibrates when the set time has elapsed and it can be set for all the times required in a game. Clearly our referee got caught up in the game and was not aware of the time.
As regards his call the referee is entitled to do this as play has not restarted so he can disallow the goal and blow for half time. If it was an insignificant amount of time say 30 secs or less I would ignore that but 1 minute 30 secs in 5 minutes is 30% over and cannot be ignored!!
My personal view is that he could also have allowed the goal, stopped for half time immediately, informed both teams of his timing error and played the second half. He then reports his error to the tournament organisers and they decide the outcome. Either way the teams will not be best pleased at the outcome and all due to a clear timing error on the referee's behalf.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Seems like a lot of poor time keeping going on in the Bayou Country!! The referee is the official timekeeper. It is inexcusable for him to allow the period to go that far over the 5 minutes unless there was a lot of added time. But, play has not restarted so he can and I think, should change his decision and wave off the goal. While it seems unfair to disallow a goal scored, it's equally unfair to allow a goal against a team when play clearly should have ended long before the goal was scored.