Question Number: 35923

High School 6/3/2025

RE: Rec and competitive High School

Neil Hanlan of Stockton, CA United States asks...

when an indirect kick is taken, does the ball have to physically move on the first touch?
I have seen a player put his/her foot on the ball and it has been taken as the first touch

Answer provided by Referee Joe Manjone

Neil,

The ball must be kicked and it must move to be in play. This is indicated in NFHS Rule 18-1-1 Free Kick which states:

"A free kick is a method by which a dead ball becomes live. The ball is placed on the ground and while motionless, it is kicked unchallenged in any direction prior to being touched by another player. The ball is is in play when it has been kicked and moves. Simply tapping the top of the ball with the foot or stepping on the ball are not sufficient. There are two types of free kicks - direct - from which a goal may be scored against an opponent with a second player touching the ball and - indirect - in which a goal may not be scored unless the ball is touched or played by another player of either team.

This is a rule some officials do interpret incorrectly. You may want to discuss this rule at your next officials association meet so all officials in your group are calling it correctly.

Thank you for this question.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Neil,
The old rule used to be that the ball had to roll its circumference, now it says it is touched and moved, but in essence it has to go from, here to there, you can't just rock or compress and expect that to be taken as a natural kick.

I personally don't like when players' use their foot to roll the ball around and place it and then leave their foot on it. A referee shouldn't have to guess if the ball is in play. I much prefer a player use their hands to place it. This this makes it easy that when a foot contacts the ball you can see the movement quite easily, whereas the foot remains on top of all it could be rolling around slightly or he might even try to reposition it causing the opposition to possibly jump the gun.

The referee must also realize that any part of the foot can kick it into play including the sole of the foot and the cleats can just simply nudge it or roll it slightly or spin it just a tad as they run over it. No one said the ball had to travel far. But I subscribe that it must be visibly kicked and moved so that it leaves no doubt. I need to see the ball and the foot separate with the ball moving away from the foot I don't care even if you just nudge it with your toe or or a cleat push and spin it forward or backwards.

The opposition will also react to any foot movement onto the ball even if it is wobbling slightly and the referee might have to decide rather than punish them for a failure to respect distance or delaying the restart to simply accept it as a restart and let things proceed accordingly or call it to a halt and immediately set the bar to ensure -All- players comply with your idea that the ball must be visibly kicked and moved leaving no doubt.
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Neal
Thanks for the question.
NFHS and IFAB are at one on this in that the ball is in play when it is kicked and moved. Moved is not defined yet golf gives us a good definition when it says that a ball is moved when a ball at rest has left its original spot and come to rest on any other spot, and this can be seen by the naked eye.

Many referees can opine that any contact on the ball that visibly moves the ball even slightly is a proper restart and allow play to continue. IFAB. the law making body in the season 2016/ 17 added the word CLEARLY to moved in the Laws on all kicked restarts to deal with a growing problem of discerning whether a ball was in play or not when the ball was *touched* at a restart. Those of us around long enough recall when the ball had to travel its circumference to be in play. That was subsequently removed and replaced with MOVED and then added to with CLEARLY which is what we have today

Now the reason this issue arises for most players at IDFKs is that it is fairly certain that opponents will rush the ball once it is kicked so the attacking team do not want to move the ball very far forward hence the tap. It used to be the same at kick offs until the ball was allowed to be kicked backwards.
Now we also have situations where players adjust the ball position with the foot at a restart. Would it be fair to allow those situations to be deemed a kick by either side.
A further debate rose with the practice of just tapping the ball and sometimes it was difficult to discern if a ball moved or not plus players pretending the ball was not in play with a dummy kick. a tactic used in ruse corner kicks, free kicks. Hence the Law change I mentioned with CLEARLY added

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gUE_tC8Kd9s

So in the incident shown in the video above once the ball was tapped and clearly moved then it was in play and available to be played by the goal scorer Fernandez. Without doubt the ball was kicked and clearly moved. The commentary suggested the kick was subtle and yes it was but the ball is clearly seen to move after the back heel by the United player who ran over the ball and played it first. The Villa defender in the wall reacted to the kick by initially moving to his left but then moves towards the ball. No question in his mind that the ball was kicked and moved.

Now have a look at this incident
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46pnEQXfIu8
The ball was not put into play by White #25 so White #8 was guilty of a double touch infringement.
The restart should have been an IDFK for the conceding team at the location of the double touch which is what caused all the furore. Obviously the officials missed that the ball was not put into play by #25 by not kicking the ball in any way. The ball was not touched and it did not move and it was hotly contested by the conceding team. In the Villa incident the only protest was about a possible offside which was not the case.

I feel that if the ball had been touched there would have been less furore about the goal. In our games I always tell referees to look for the reaction of the opponents. If the ball is touched, seen to move and the defending team rush the ball blocking it or it goes wide my sense would be to allow play to continue based on the decision by the defending team after contact on the ball that it was in play.