Being Substituted

November 17, 2019November 18, 2019 by Dan Heldman

(The following inquiry from Heibel could not be answered directly — our private response was rejected as undeliverable)

Heibel, an adult amateur player, asks:

During the match, one of my players was subbed out and was leaving from the far side of the field, referee cards him a yellow, we ask for an explanation, ref doesn’t give one. Later in the game, I get called to sub out, I take a couple steps to leave the field from the far side but remember what happened to the other play so I immediately change direction and go towards the center of the field where the oncoming player is, I ran off at slightly less than a sprint. The ref cards me my second yellow saying i was wasting time. Now I have a red card, can’t play in the final. Should I argue it? Or was it a right call?

Answer

The Law requires (as of this year) that, with certain exceptions, players being subbed out to leave the field must exit at the closest point relative to the field’s perimeter lines (e.g., touch or goal line).

As for a card, well, it seems ill-advised. A caution could be given if the referee decided the departing player was deliberately and clearly wasting time under circumstances where such wasting was meaningful (i.e., your team is 1 goal up with just 45 seconds remaining in the half and the stoppage involves a restart under the control of the opposing team where, with luck, the opposing team might score). A caution is hardly mandatory and would not be given ordinarily merely because a departing player was moving off the field toward the usual, traditional, though never actually mandated location of the midfield line on the team side of the field just because that was farther away than some other exit point.

Frankly, we don’t understand the basis for the red card you mentioned receiving … unless you had already received a caution earlier in the game. In any event, we don’t have a clear mental picture regarding what path you took in leaving the field. You say that you momentarily began leaving by moving to the “far side” but it is not clear whether you were referring to a path that would take you off the field by the longest distance or you were using the term “far side” as a traditional reference to the side of the field opposite to the team side. In any event, we also don’t know what you meant by changing direction to the “center of the field where the oncoming player is.” The latter makes no sense unless you were meaning to say that you began moving to the side of the field from which the incoming player entered (which, for entering players, is still mandated in most cases).

The first point, however, is that, just as with the other player in this scenario, you were required to leave the field at the nearest point of the touch or goal line, regardless of which direction this took you. Further, unless you WERE already sitting on a caution from some earlier incident, the prior caution for your teammate is not included in YOUR card count. The card is given to a PERSON, not a TEAM. Finally, we have as little support for the caution to you for “time wasting” as was already expressed for the earlier caution for the same reason – if either of you were in fact wasting time (a decision which must be based on actual wasting of meaningful time and not merely predicated on merely leaving the field on a longer path than the Law allows), then the caution is justified but only under the circumstances just outlined and only if the time being wasted was meaningful and not technical.

Referees should be conservative as regards unnecessary cards – a simple reminder to a departing player that he/she is now required to leave at the closest point (which, remember, was the reason given by the International Board for the change!) should be adequate. Keep in mind that there is, after all, a maximum of 1,200 feet of touch+goal lines encompassing an international match field (1,380 feet if not international) and, technically, there is exactly only one precise point in all that distance that is “nearest” which any player must use in exiting in order to meet the “closest point” requirement. Like so much in the Law, some measure of common sense must be applied and that common sense is based on actual, meaningful time-wasting which a player stubbornly, deliberately engages in despite being warned by the referee.

As for arguing, the answer is no, don’t bother. If you are really bothered, file a complaint.…

Law 5 - Referee

Post-Game Misconduct

November 11, 2019 by Dan Heldman

Kate, an adult amateur coach, asks:

At what point after the game does a referee’s jurisdiction end ? I am the secretary of a club and have received a suspension notice from our regional governing body. The referee saw 2 players mouthing off at each other in the car park approximately 20 minutes to half an hour after the game had ended. There was no physical contact . I have been told the players have been suspended and the matter passed to an arbitrator .

Answer

Under the Law and in accordance with standard mechanics/policies from US Soccer (which, from the language of your inquiry, suggests to us is not your governing body), the referee’s authority after a game lasts while the referee remains “in the area” of the field. This is normally taken to include only the immediate environs – which, in turn, generally extends roughly about as far outside the field as a bit beyond the depth of the team areas. Unfortunately, the Law/policy on this presumes a high level game played in a stadium so all that we said operationally means in such circumstances that the referee remains responsible until the officiating team exits the field into the stadium. In practice and for everyday games where there are no changing rooms or stadiums, this becomes much looser.

However, we are more concerned about the passage of time in your scenario. Short of a general melee involving whole teams, there is no reason for an official to remain in the area of the field for discipline matters for more than 10-15 minutes – even if the referee had to remain in the general area due to another assignment following soon after the game in question.

All this resolves into a fairly clear but at times indeterminate set of levels of concern. Cards can only be shown to players or team officials during the match. Once the match is over, the referee is responsible for including in the game’s official report to the competition authority any misconduct by players or team officials only while the persons committing misconduct and the referee are both still “in the area of the field” and only for a relatively short time — everyone has places to go and things to do so there is no good reason for sticking around. At this second level of responsibility, the referee can include a general description of the misconduct plus a statement of what card and under what category of misbehavior that card would have been given had the conduct occurred during the game itself. After this, the Law envisions no referee responsibility as a referee for any conduct by anyone. Of course, depending on the behavior, there are civil or criminal remedies that parties can pursue.

Personally, we would suggest that the behavior in question occurred too long after the game and too far away from the field to remain clearly within the responsibility of the referee. Of course, a league organization might well decide that it wishes to deal with behavior that, in their opinion, might reflect negatively on the organization’s reputation and might wish to gather information from the referee, not as a referee but as an ordinary witness to the event.…

Law 12 - Fouls & Misconduct

Attackers/Defenders and Goalkeeper Interference

November 7, 2019November 7, 2019 by Dan Heldman

Tim, a U13 – U19 player, asks:

I have two questions:
1. I was called for a foul in game for blocking the goalkeeper from punting the ball. But after searching the rule online, I found that my play was not like any of the given circumstances. As the goalkeeper tossed the ball up to punt it, I started my run up toward the keeper and, after he made contact with the ball, I blocked it. The ref said that I blocked the the keeper, but I don’t think that makes sense. What does blocking the keeper really mean?
2. What counts as an attacking position? In that same game mentioned in the first question, the ref called the game over after a player on my team lost the ball after he was elbowed in the face. The ball rolls out of the box and the ref does not call a foul, but ends the game. His reasoning was that time had been up and we were out of an attacking position. But 8 players of our team, plus the entire other team were in the box, and our players were the closest to the ball at that point. So what is an attacking position exactly?

Answer

Purely as a matter of Law, there is no such offense as “blocking the keeper” – what you described is, using the terminology of the Law, interfering with the goalkeeper’s release of the ball into play. That “release” is further understood to include the process of physically releasing the ball in preparation for a kick. In your first scenario, you definitely interfered. As a matter of mechanics, however, most referees would have stepped in the moment they saw you not only NOT retreating but, worse, moving closer, and shouted for you to get back. Failing to do so is not only an offense (indirect free kick restart) but also cautionable as unsporting behavior.

The Laws of the Game provide a relatively simple answer to your second question. By common definition, every player on the team which has control of the ball or which last had control of the ball is an attacker … everyone else is a defender. This includes circumstances in which the ball is not in play, in which case the team that has the restart are the attackers. The only time in a game in which there are no attackers or defenders is during the midgame break.…

Law 4 - Equipment

Jersey Numbers

November 7, 2019November 7, 2019 by Dan Heldman

Christopher, a High School & College referee, asks:

The keeper wearing jersey #31 was injured and replaced with a substitute keeper wearing jersey #1. This keeper then got a red card and had to leave the field. A player on the field became a keeper but wearing the same jersey #1 worn by the keeper who was red carded. Is this permitted?

Answer

This is less a matter of Law than a matter of procedure governed by the local rules of competition. Another way of putting it is that we have no particular answer to it because it is not strictly a Law question – the Law per se has nothing to say about jersey numbers, only the fact that the keeper’s jersey has to be clearly distinguishable from the jerseys of everyone else and that, in turn, is solely a matter of color (and secondarily, of design).

The purpose of jersey numbering has little to do with distinguishing field players from goalkeepers and much more to do with (a) maintaining a “clean” team roster and (b) enabling the referee to record jersey numbers rather than actual player names if/when there is ever a need to record behavior generally and cards specifically for the match report at the end of the match. For example, the local rules of competition might well have a requirement that each player and substitute have a unique number on the jersey which matches the a number identifying the player in the roster given to the referee before the start of the game. It also depends on the level of competition because, at lower levels, teams generally may not have sufficient funds to have uniquely numbered “backup” jerseys in cases like goalkeeper replacement and/or replacement of a damaged and/or bloody jersey.

By the way, note that, as part of the point made earlier that the Law has nothing to say regarding jersey numbers, there is certainly nothing requiring goalkeepers to wear any particular number (e.g., 1) or that a replacement player has to wear a jersey with the same number as worn by the player who was replaced. At most, local rules might require that any jersey numbers noted on a team’s roster might need to be adjusted as/when there is a change.…