CORNER KICK AND THE FLAG

May 21, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
An attacking team is awarded a corner kick.
As the attacker approaches to take the kick ,she pushes the corner flag aside to give her ample room to strike the ball.
Should play immediately be stopped while the ball is still in play, give the player a yellow card for unsporting behavior and award a rekick of the corner kick?

USSF answer (May 21, 2009):
The following excerpt from the “Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game” is applicable here:

1.6 NO PLAYER MODIFICATIONS TO THE FIELD
“Goalkeepers or other players may not make unauthorized marks on the field of play. The player who makes such marks or alterations on the field to gain an unfair advantage may be cautioned for unsporting behavior. Players may return bent or leaning corner flags to the upright position, but they may not bend or lean them away from the upright position to take a corner kick, nor may the corner flag be removed for any reason.

Accordingly, what the player did was, indeed, a violation of the Law. If you decide that the action warrants a caution for misconduct (unsporting behavior), then you would stop play, show the yellow card, and restart with the corner kick (because the misconduct occurred while the ball was not in play). However, you could also be proactive, if possible, by anticipating the player’s action and advising her not to move the flag before she actually commits the infraction. Finally, you could decide that the violation was trifling, allow the corner kick to be taken, and give her a formal warning not to move the flag in the future.…

"Inventive Coaches"

“MEDICAL PERSONNEL”

May 12, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
The following happens in a boys U12 game. An attacker is fouled in the box, with a resulting whistle and penalty kick. The fouled attacker is shaken up and, after inspection, the referee signals his coach onto the field to treat him. (Note: there are no doctors or other medical personnel available.)

After a relatively short visit by the coach, the player is up and wants to continue in the game and take the PK. However, the referee tells him (and the coach) that he must temporarily leave the field since the injury required team personnel to be summoned onto the field.

The coach’s position is that the player does not have to leave the field for the following reasons:

1. ATR (Law 5.9) states that: “When the referee has stopped play due solely to the occurrence of a serious injury, the referee must ensure that the injured player is removed from the field….If play is stopped for any other reason, an injured player cannot be required to leave the field.”

The coach maintains that play was stopped for the foul, not for the injury, and that this wording says that the injured player cannot be required to leave the field.

2. The coach is also later directed to the following USSF wording: “A player for whom the referee has requested medical personnel to enter the field at a stoppage is required to leave the field and may return with the referee’s permission only after play has resumed even if the stoppage was not expressly for the injury.”

His position is that: (a) “medical personnel” was not summoned onto the field – only a coach; and (b) this is contradictory to the ATR advice in 5.9 that states “if play is stopped for any other reason, an injured player cannot be required to leave the field.”

It would be appreciated if you could respond to this coach’s position.

USSF answer (May 12, 2009):
Basic rule of soccer: Coaches will try in every possible way to divert your thinking from the true path. Do not let this happen!

There is no basis in what the coach says, as the player must leave the field in any event, no matter why the game was stopped. What Advice 5.9 says is this: “Players who are injured are required to leave the field under either of two conditions: The referee has stopped play due solely to the occurrence of a serious injury or the referee signals approval for anyone (team official, medical personnel, etc.) to enter the field to attend to an injury (regardless of whether that person enters to assist or not and regardless of why play was stopped).”

The USSF position paper on “Handling Injuries,” dated October 12, 2007, states: “‘Medical personnel’ for purposes of these guidelines includes any team official who has responsibility for the player in the absence of available trained medical staff.”

Basic answer: If there no “medical personnel” available at the game and someone, anyone, is called into the field to attend to an injury, the player must leave the field. It makes no difference if it is the coach, Mom or Dad, or a passing stranger: The player MUST leave the field.

And when play is restarted, after the player has left the field, the referee must blow the whistle.…

Law 18 - Common Sense

OFFSIDE ASSISTANCE BY TRAIL AR?

May 12, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
This question relates to what role the trailing Assistant Referee may play in assisting with an offside call on the other end of the field. This situation occurred in a high school game (on whose rules I know you don’t directly comment), but I imagine that it could easily occur in a USSF sanctioned match.

Team A has pushed its defenders up to the midfield line. Due to a rapid exchange of possessions, I am lined up with Team B’s second to last defender about 15 yards from the midfield line (one of those awkward situations where 20 players are squeezed into a relatively narrow slice of the field). Team B gains possession of the ball and clears it into the other half of the field. From my position I judge that Team B has three players in an offside position, and one of these players gains possession of the ball. Where is the Assistant Referee who should be signaling the offside? For some unknown reason he is 40 yards out of position and incapable of assisting. Since the referee’s attention had been on the clearing defender, and the (potentially) offside player was only 2-3 steps offside when the ball was played, he is unable to make the offside call on his own and allows play to continue.

I am about as sure as I can be from 15 yards on my side of the field that the player was offside, as I could see no Team A players in their own half of the field. After seeing that the other AR is incapable of performing his duty, can I raise my flag to help the referee make a decision?

In this case I chose not to signal for offside. Fortunately the play did not result in a goal, as it would likely have affected the outcome of the game. If a goal had been scored, would it have been too late to offer my opinion to the referee that the player had been offside (assuming that I did so before the ensuing kickoff)?

USSF answer (May 12, 2009):
As you note, we do not deal with high school rules, but there should be no difference in this situation.

While you may indeed have had a view of the alignment of the players, assistance from you in this case could not be “sold” to the participants because of where you were on the field — not in line with play. If you flagged and offered your opinion and the referee accepted it, that would cause more difficulty than either of you can imagine.

The same applies to offering your opinion after the goal had been scored and before the ensuing kick-off.

Our advice would be to mention it to the referee after the game and have him take it up with the other AR, who should be ashamed for being so far out of position and thus endangering the referee’s control of the game.…

"Only in America!"

INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SIDELINES

May 7, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
What is the proper way to handle parents who coach from the spectator area, or as I suspect, teams who place coaches on the spectator side for purposes of being able to instruct players from both sides of the field? Some of these spectator coaches will cross the field at halftime to instruct players in the technical area. What can I, as an official do to stop this?

USSF answer (May 7, 2009):
Unless there is some rule of competition that prohibits coaches from mingling with the spectators and carrying on their role as coach(es), then there is nothing the referee can do about such action during the game. A rule of competition prohibiting coaching from the spectator area is unenforceable unless the competition itself is willing to place monitors in the spectator area. Think about it: How can the referee determine whether some parent yelling generally nonsensical and confusing things at the players is simply a parent or is instead a coach in disguise yelling generally nonsensical and confusing things at the players? The coach’s job should be done in the period before the game begins, in the week preceding the game and over the course of the season. There is little of value to be gained by yelling instructions across a field.

As to crossing the field at halftime to issue further instructions to the players, again there is not much the referee can do without help from the competition itself. As a practical matter, the field is open territory at the midgame break and there shouldn’t be a problem if a parent (or whoever) from the parent side wants to cross the field to be with the team, player, coach, etc. on the other side — nor would we have a problem if the coach left the team side at halftime to go across the field to talk to a parent on the other side. In short, unless the crossing is for nefarious purposes and/or causes a confrontation, the referee crew has more important things to do than keep people off the field at midgame break.…

"Inventive Coaches"

COACH/REFEREE UNINFORMED RE UNIFORMS

May 7, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
I had the distinct pleasure of working with our up and coming youth officials as an AR in a U12B game. I sincerely hope that the coach/referee reads this site and you feel it is pertinent enough to post the question and supply the answer.
It was a tournament game with games back to back. The referee and AR were fairly new so they only had the yellow shirt. The coach of the yellow team (solid yellow jerseys), 3 minutes before game time (when we had been there inspecting the nets/players for a few minutes) introduced himself to the referee and demanded that the crew change jerseys because of the confusion it has caused all tournament and season, for that matter. He claimed that he, too, was a registered official and had all the secondary colored referee jerseys in case of conflict. The young referee stated that he did not have an alternate color jersey nor was it practical to run back to the referee tent (far far away) and try to find someone who could loan us two shirts because the games had to run on time. We did a check of both teams while they were warming up but they had on black warm ups so we did not assume that they would have yellow jerseys. It was our error that we did not ask t o! see the color of the uniforms. But, the stripes in our shirts clearly delineated us from the team and has done so in the past when there was a “conflict”. The coach went ballistic and claimed that since we were all professionals, we were required to have alternate colors. He said that, despite the two officials being young that all officials were required to have alternate jerseys!! He yelled at me (because I have all the gold on my badge, I guess) and said that there had to be five distinct colors on the field. We resolved it because we found 3 pennies to wear so, that indeed, gave us five distinct colors. The game started on time.
At half time, the coach substituted his goalkeeper. The new goalkeeper had a jersey the same color as the opponents. I called it to the referee’s attention before the second half began. The coach was livid! He claimed that he did not have another jersey because the previous goalkeeper did not want to loan his jersey to the replacement. He was gently reminded that there needed to be five distinct colors on the field. He huffed and puffed and threatened to file a complaint about our being “unreasonable” and overstepping our authority. We did not start the second half until he satisfied the color requirement. The next tournament game on our field started on time.
Question: What are the requirements for youth officials regarding alternate jerseys? They are local officials and there are no yellow teams in our area. Parents are very upset at the start up costs for just the starter kit and are reluctant to put out anymore money because it is not clear which alternate jersey to buy since you would conflict with most teams, anyway.
Oh, the yellow team lost the game and apparently had a losing tournament.

USSF answer (May 7, 2009):
As a referee, the coach should KNOW that the Law requires the teams to change so as not to conflict with the referees. (After all, who started wearing black jerseys and thus took away what used to be “the referee color”?)

Referees, particularly at the beginning of their career, are required to have only a gold jersey. If they can afford to buy more colors, good for them, but they do not have to. It was very kind of your crew to find some pinnies to borrow and thus do the yellow team a major favor. The referee on your game would have been justified in requiring the yellow team to change its jerseys. And the referee was also justified in insisting that the goalkeeper change, if only because the coach/referee was a pain.

There are times when the goalkeepers may wear the same color as one another, but they must make every effort to wear a different color than the opposing team’s field players.…

"Inventive" Refs

WHEN MAY A TEAM SUBSTITUTE?

April 30, 2009April 30, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
When are teams allowed to make make substitution?

I am a new referee at the Recreational level. I am confused as to when teams are permitted to make substitutions. Having heard conflicting responses from the referees I work with, I want to ask the question on here, because I am serving as central referee for the first time this weekend. I could not find a clear answer in the publications “Laws of the game,” or “Guide to Procedures.” However, a common pattern of answers where I work is that you can sub at most stoppages but not during corner kicks or opponent throw-ins. Yet other claims are that you can only make subs when the restart is in the advantage of your team. If you could clear this issue up for me, I would be very pleased and would educate refs and coaches alike in my league.

Thanks in advance for your help!

USSF answer (April 30, 2009):
Actually, you will find the procedure for substitutions in two separate places in the Laws: In Law 3 (The Players) itself and in the back of the book, under Interpretations and Guidelines for Referees. We include here only the latter, as it is more complete:
Substitution Procedure
– A substitution may be made only during a stoppage in play
– The assistant referee signals that a substitution has been requested
– The player being substituted receives the referee’s permission to leave the field of play, unless he is already off the field of play for reasons that comply with the Laws of the Game
– The referee gives the substitute permission to enter the field of play
– Before entering the field of play, the substitute waits for the player he is replacing to leave the field
– The player being substituted is not obliged to leave the field of play on the halfway line
– Permission to proceed with a substitution may be refused under certain circumstances, e. g., if the substitute is not ready to enter the field of play
– A substitute who has not completed the substitution process by setting foot onto the field of play cannot restart play by taking a throw-in or corner kick
– If a player who is about to be replaced refuses to leave the field of play, play continues
– If a substitution is made during the half-time interval or before extra time, the process is to be completed before the second half or extra time kicks off.

You will find, as you progress up the refereeing ladder, that many competitions (leagues or tournaments, etc.) make up their own rules for substitution, many of them not quite in agreement with the Laws of the Game — the Laws allow for different rules only for players below the age of 16, “veterans” (over 35), female players, and disabled players. If you accept a game in such a competition, you are bound to follow their rules.

Most of the local substitution rules are at least partly consistent with the Laws of the Game, but are valid ONLY if the players are below the age of 16, veteran (over 35) or female footballers, or disabled.…

Law 3 - Players

NOT SEEN? NOT AN INFRINGEMENT

April 30, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
A team has 12 players on the field and scores a goal, the CR doesn’t recognize number of players is 12. The CR sets the ball at center field to restart the game when the opposing coach tells the referee there was 12 players on the field for the team that scored.

By this time the opposing team has taken the extra player off the field.

What should be done?

USSF answer (April 30, 2009):
If the referee and the assistant referee have not seen the incident, it did not happen and nothing can be done. The match officials need to be more observant of things beyond the play around the ball.

If there were a reliable witness to this incident — and that could only be a member of the officiating crew — the answer depends on whether the “extra” player belongs to the team that scored. If it did, the goal is canceled and the restart would be a goal kick; otherwise proceed with the kick-off. Furthermore, in either case, the “extra” player would be cautioned for USB and required to leave the field.…

Advice to Referees

DOGSO; SIGNAL TO DISALLOW GOAL

April 30, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
1. Why are there two DOGO’s?
Handling is also punishable by a free kick or penalty kick so wouldn’t dogf be sufficient?

2. Signal by AR for goal to by disallowed is to stand at attention with flag straight down, but doesn’t say anything about the signal after eye contact with CR. Why doesn’t AR follow the same procedure as signaling a foul or offside as soon as he see’s it? Standing at attention with flag straight down to signal a person interfering looks the same as a foul, but the restart is IFK, not DFK. It seems like a conference is needed to get the correct restart, when giving the signal as soon as it becomes an offense gives all the necessary information. I see no reason to wait to give the flag a waggle or indicate offside. Can you explain the reasoning?

USSF answer (April 30, 2009):
1. The International Board wanted to make it clear that these were two different situations in several important respects. First, DG-H has a goalkeeper exception, DG-F does not. Second, they use a different standard — DG-H = but for the handling, the ball would have gone into the net;; DG-F = in the opinion of the referee, the opportunity was disrupted. Third, DG-H does not involve any of the “4 Ds” (they are applicable only to DH-F). Fourth, DG-H applies to a substitute who has illegally entered the field, DG-F does not.

2. Yes. But we assume you want more than this clear and simple answer.

It is presumed that the referee will have seen enough of the events occurring just in front of the goal to differentiate among the three different possibilities for canceling a goal even though the ball is in the net (offside offense by the scorer, offside offense by a teammate of the scorer, foul by an attacker) and that the AR’s signal is primarily a further confirmation. To that end, the procedure for the first is to signal the offside offense in the usual way but to simply stand still (“at attention”) for the other two. The referee, seeing the latter signal, therefore knows that there are only two possibilities — offside offense by a teammate of the scorer or a foul by an attacker. This is usually sufficient for most experienced referees. If it is not for some reason, then the referee and AR can confer briefly. As for differentiating between an indirect free kick versus a direct free kick restart for the two offenses indicated by the AR standing still, most experienced referees would again recognize that, so close to the defending team’s goal, it rarely matters which will occur.…

Coach

GOALKEEPER CHANGE

April 23, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
Attacking team had possession of the ball near the defending team’s goal. Meanwhile, way back at the attacking team’s goal area, with play still in progress, the attacking team’s coach had come onto the field and helped his GK take off his shirt and put it on one of his defenders

USSF answer (April 23, 2009):
And where were the referee and the assistant referee(s) and fourth official (if assigned) while all this was going on?

Law 3 (The Players) tells us what to do if a team official enters the field of play without permission:

Team Officials
If a team official enters the field of play:
– the referee must stop play (although not immediately if the team official does not interfere with play or if the advantage can be applied)
– the referee must have him removed form the field of play and if his behavior is irresponsible the referee must expel him from the field of play and its immediate surroundings
– if the referee stops the match, he must restart play with a dropped ball in the position where the ball was at the time when the match was stopped, unless the ball was stopped inside the goal area, in which case the referee drops the ball on the goal area line parallel to the goal line at the point nearest to where the ball was when play was stopped.

We must emphasize how significant a factor in this is the age of the players. No need to get upset about this, but we suggest “educating” the coach at the first opportunity) for kids in the below 8 or 9 year age range. We might be tolerant eveh at an age level 1-2 years older than this if it was apparent (out of the corner of my eye) that the GK had become so hopelessly entangled in his jersey that he was virtually wrapped up in a straight jacket. Anything older than this or short of these circumstances, the players get cautions, the coach is informed that it is entirely his fault, and full details of the incident are included in the game report.

We also suggest that the nearer assistant or fourth official commit seppuku for allowing this to happen.…

Law 18 - Common Sense

GOALKEEPER INJURY

April 23, 2009 by Jim Allen

Question:
I just accessed the U.S. Soccer web-site to be sure I had your up-to-date contact information and to browse the questions and answers before I sent my question, to make sure it wasn’t already answered. Lo and behold, the April 14 posting “Role of the Goalkeeper” opens up the topic that I want to address, albeit a different aspect of it.

I observed a game where the goalkeeper got injured. The near assistant referee and the center referee clearly saw what had happened and had no doubt that the goalkeeper would not be able to participate in play for a little while at least. They let play continue and the attacking team score. Then the center referee called the coach out to attend to the goalkeeper.

My question is this (and it may be that I misunderstand the intent of the law): The law states that one player on each team is a goalkeeper. If the goalkeeper has been incapacitated so that he/she cannot play, in effect the team does not have a goalkeeper, that is they do not have a functioning goalkeeper. What should the referee do if that happens – stop play? If you give an answer that is not just a straight “yes” or “no”, please give some guidance: Does it make a difference as to the age of the players or the level of play, or the circumstances of the game. I’m looking to clear up my own murky thinking in this area and to share your answer with colleagues, too. I know there is a risk of cynical goalkeepers feigning injuries to get play stopped and I have a bit of a soft heart, so I could get suckered into stopping play inappropriately. While you can deal with the goalkeeper’s simulating an injury, the effect on the game itself may not be remedied. Similarly, if a goal is scored and allowed to stand while the goalkeeper cannot play, the effect on the game is also profound.

USSF answer (April 23, 2009):
Let us start with several premises:
(a) All players are perfect angels until they prove otherwise.
(b) While the team is required to have a goalkeeper, there is no requirement that that goalkeeper be on the field nor able to participate in play.
(c) The referee is directed by Law 5 to stop play only if a player is seriously injured. If, in the opinion of the referee, the player (goalkeeper or field player) is not seriously injured, there is no need to stop play and have the player treated. (We could point to an October 2004 incident in an English Premier League match between Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers in which the referee allowed the goalkeeper to lie on the ground unattended for well over a minute; the goalkeeper, who had fallen without any contact from either opponent or teammate, finally got up. Luckily for him and his team no goal was scored.)
(d) The Law also allows the goalkeeper (or any other player) to leave the field during the course of play and if, after the restart (typically a throw-in), the goalkeeper has not returned and a goal is scored, life is hard.

Given that the goalkeeper is often the last line of defense against a goal, referees should interpret this to mean that they should stop play more quickly in the case of a goalkeeper injury when the players are young, unskilled, and inexperienced. Furthermore, if, as you said in your question, the referee “had no doubt” that the injury precluded the goalkeeper from participating in play, this certainly sounds like it should have been considered a serious injury at just about any level of competition.…