Question:
I am sure I saw something in the past, but cannot find it.

I under stand if an offensive player is fouled outside the penalty area and the foul continues into the penalty area, it results in a penalty kick (ex the defensive player started pushing the attacker outside and continued to push him as the player entered the penalty area).

When a foul is committed outside the penalty area by the defensive player and the offensive player falls into the penalty area. It is considered a continuation foul that results in a penalty kick in the following situations?

Scenario 1 The offensive player is moving toward the goal and is fouled approximately 1 foot outside the penalty area and his momentum carried him into the penalty area.

Scenario 2 The offensive player is moving toward the goal and is fouled well outside the penalty area and his momentum after one or two steps carried him into the penalty area where he falls.

Scenario 3 The offensive player is standing just outside the penalty area, is fouled and falls into the penalty area.

USSF answer (May 29, 2008):
The source of your information is this position paper, issued in April 2007:

Subject: When Fouls Continue!
Date: April 30, 2007

Prompted by several recent situations in professional league play, a discussion has developed regarding the proper action to take when a foul continues over a distance on the field. Many fouls occur with the participants in motion, both the player committing the foul and the opponent being fouled, and it is not unusual for the offense to end far away from where the initial contact occurred.

Usually, the only problem this creates for the referee is the need to decide the proper location for the restart. Occasionally, however, an additional issue is created when the distance covered results in an entirely different area of the field becoming involved. A foul which starts outside the penalty area, for example, might continue into and finally end inside the offending player’s penalty area. Or a foul might start inside the field but, due to momentum, end off the field. In these cases, the decision about where the foul occurred also affects what the correct restart must be.

In general, the referee should determine the location of the foul based on what gives the greater benefit to the player who was fouled. FIFA has specifically endorsed this principle in one of its “Questions and Answers on the Laws of the Game “ (12.31) which states that a penalty kick is the correct restart if a player begins holding an opponent outside the player’s penalty area and continues this action inside his penalty area.

The restarts for the actions described in your three scenarios do not qualify as penalty kicks unless the foul continues to be committed from outside the penalty area into the penalty area. Momentum alone does not change the location of the foul if the player who committed the foul stops before the player who was fouled actually enters the penalty area.

Where referees err here is to forget that some fouls are clearly single events (e. g., trip, strike, kick) whereas others at least can be continuous events (hold, charge) and still others are ambiguous (e. g., jumping at — is this foul located where the jumper starts his jump or where the opponent is at whom the jump is aimed?).

So, to emphasize it clearly: The restarts for the actions described in your three scenarios do not qualify as penalty kicks unless the foul continues to be committed from outside the penalty area into the penalty area. Momentum alone is not enough.…

Question:
I got into a debate with a fellow referee in a local adult amateur league the other weekend. It was a friendly disagreement, but I’m appealing to a higher authority to adjudicate which of us was correct, since we couldn’t agree.

Red Team is playing Green Team. A Red player fouls a Green player; the center referee stops play and signals a direct free kick for Green. A Red player (perhaps confused, perhaps intentionally) picks up the ball, places it, and kicks it, putting it back into play. The referee whistles to stop play, returns the ball to the spot of the original foul, and signals again for a Green kick.

We could not agree whether the referee was correct in doing so. One of us maintained that the ball was in play once the kick was taken, regardless of who took it, and the referee could not then stop play.

The other one of us argued that the referee could, indeed, stop play, as the kick taken was not a proper restart and that, in fact, had it been an obvious attempt by Red to delay the Green kick, the Red player could even have been cautioned for delaying a restart.

Who was right? A frosty beverage may be riding on the answer! 🙂

USSF answer (May 20, 2008):
The principle expressed in the following excerpt from the USSF publication “Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game” fits the situation you presented to a tee. It makes absolutely no difference that in your situation it was the player who screwed up, not the referee. Retake the original restart!!!! If you believe there was some confusion on the part of the Red player, let it go with a friendly warning to pay attention. If you believe it to have been a conscious effort to subvert the referee’s decision, caution as suggested in your query.

5.14 CHANGING A DECISION ON AN INCORRECT RESTART
If the referee awards a restart for the wrong team and realizes the mistake before the restart is taken, then the restart may be corrected even though the decision was announced after the restart took place. This is based on the established principle that the referee’s initial decision takes precedence over subsequent action. The visual and verbal announcement of the decision after the restart has already occurred is well within the Spirit of the Law, provided the decision was made before the restart took place.

And where/when do we get OUR frosty beverage??…

Question:
Where in the Laws of the Game does it say that when a player is sent off and shown the red card, that that team must play with one less player.

This is something everyone knows, and I have found it in Advice to Referees, but I can’t find it in the Laws of the Game.

Would a team be able to later challenge the referees’ decision to “play short”?

USSF answer (May 14, 2008):
There has been no change in the Law nor in the interpretation of the Law since we published this answer on May 5, 2003:

Simplification is everything, or so the IFAB thought back in 1997. Believing that everyone “knew” this to be so, they eliminated the phrase from the Laws. And that is why USSF issued this position paper back in 1999:
No Replacement for Player Sent Off after the Game Has Started
International Football Association Board (IFAB) Decision (3), on Law III, formerly stated: “A player who has been ordered off after play has started may not be replaced,” containing this prohibition was omitted by the IFAB in the extensive revision of the Laws that took place in 1997. The rewrite was extensive and included both new language and revisions of existing language: numerous provisions in the 1996 edition of the Laws of the Game were removed and have not reappeared in subsequent revisions. Nevertheless, the provisions of IFAB Decision 3 on Law III (and numerous other decisions) remain valid to this day.
The intention of IFAB was to clarify and simplify concepts, to replace older terminology, to present concepts which are more easily translated into languages other than English and to shorten the Laws of the Game overall. The excised IFAB decisions should not be considered a rejection of the requirement, but an affirmation that a separate, additional statement of the concept involved was unnecessary. In other words, the IFAB believed that the basic principle that a player sent off after the game has started may not be replaced was so well understood by the entire soccer community that it did not need to be mentioned in the Laws.
//rest deleted//

Question:
I am a new Level 09 referee. I need some guidance about how a match ends. I understand that if a penalty offence occurs at the end of match time the penalty kick is taken. Are there any other set play situations that require carrying them out, such as free kicks, corners and goal kicks, that need to be taken after time has (just) ended?

USSF answer (May 6, 2008):
There is no set or particular moment to end a game. Law 5 empowers the referee to act as timekeeper and to keep a record of the match. Law 7 instructs the referee to add time (at his discretion) for time lost in either half of a game or in any overtime period for the reasons listed in Law 7 (Allowance for Time Lost). Referees allow additional time in all periods for all time lost through substitution(s), assessment of injury to players, removal of injured players from the field of play for treatment,wasting time, as well as “other causes” that consume time, such as kick-offs, throw-ins, dropped balls, free kicks, and replacement of lost or defective balls. Many of the reasons for stoppages in play and thus “lost time” are entirely normal elements of the game. The referee takes this into account in applying discretion regarding the time to be added. The main objective should be to restore playing time to the match which is lost due to excessively prolonged or unusual stoppages. Law 5 tells us that the referee’s decisions regarding facts connected with play are final.

Some referees will end the playing period while the ball is in play and there is no threat to either goal, such as allowing a team to take a goal kick and then ending the period. Others will end the playing period at a stoppage. Our advice is to do what is comfortable for the referee and fair to the players.

The referee must always add time lost; however, as Law 7 tells us: “The allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee.” In other words, the amount of time added is up to the referee.

To that we can only add that we sometimes find that referees abandon good sense in situations such as this.

And finally, to answer your specific question, no, a penalty kick is the only restart required by Law to be completed even though time is over (including additional time allowed for time lost due to excessively prolonged delays).…