Question:
I was refereeing a U17 girls game. It seemed like every time a ball was played in to the half of one of my assistant referees, she raised her flag signaling offside. The team complained to me with about 5 minutes left in the half about the calls of this AR saying that she was signaling offside for people that were not interfering with play but were in an offside position. I explained to them that the AR was in the best position to make the call but that I would monitor it. I had waived one offside call off as well as an illegal throw-in signal that was given by this AR. With play going the opposite direction in the second half, I noted that only a quarter of the offside calls were being made by the AR compared to what the first AR was making. 

How should a referee handle the situation where there is some doubt in the calls that the AR is making? If the AR is continually waived off, they could shut down and not call anything. There seems to be a fine balance in maintaining the cohesiveness of the referee team.    

USSF answer (May 8, 2008):
You don’t tell us what your instructions to the assistant referees were before the game, so we cannot be certain whether or not this AR knew what was expected of her. As leader of the officiating team, the referee must establish during the pregame conference how the team will work and cooperate. If this is not done, then we can expect nothing but problems as the ARs fill the gap in the instructions by inventing their own. Did you attempt to make any adjustments during the halftime break? One way might have been to suggest to the AR that she should remember the requirements of the various Laws, such as active involvement for offside or position of the feet in Law 15 and not be overly picky.

Finally, you need to remember that part of what you said about offside is not quite correct: Although the AR is in the best position (usually) to judge offside POSITION, it is the referee who must make the final decision regarding offside INVOLVEMENT and this decision falls more heavily on the referee’s shoulders the farther away the play is from the AR.

If all else fails, then the final paragraph of Law 6 gives you all the information you need for such cases:
“In the event of undue interference or improper conduct, the referee will relieve an assistant referee of his duties and make a report to the appropriate authorities.”…

Question:
If (during play) a fight breaks out between 2 opposing players. you (as center ref) blow the whistle for the fight. Neither you nor the AR saw who started the fight, you Red Card BOTH players.

Which would be the restart?
1. Restart where the ball was at the time you blew the whistle with an IFK to the team that had possession of the ball
2. Drop ball at the point of the Serious Foul Play
3. IFK at the point of the SFP to a team of your choice (just like choosing a team for a throw in that went out and you could not determine who last touched the ball)
4. DFK at the point of the SFP to a team of your choice (just like choosing a team for a throw in that went out and you could not determine who last touched the ball)

USSF answer (May 7, 2008):
The Federation has stated quite clearly that the referee must make a decision in all cases of infringements of the Laws, if that is at all possible. If it is not possible to determine who began the fight and both parties appear to be equally involved, then the correct restart is a dropped ball at the place where the ball was when play was stopped, bearing in mind the special circumstances involving the goal area.

If the nearer AR has not seen the incident, it never hurts to ask the AR who is farther away (or the fourth official, if there is one).…

Question:
What is the proper or preferred procedure for checking player and coach passes before a game? Everytime I AR a game, I see a different procedure. When I CR a game, I have my own way of doing it. Does it matter as long as it gets done or is there a procedure we should all follow?

USSF answer (May 7, 2008):
There is no standard nationwide procedure for checking passes. Each competition authority has a different sort of pass and a different set of criteria for what information is on the pass and how they should be checked. The referee is best advised to be fully aware of what the competition’s criteria and rules are.…

Question:
When red and yellow linesmen’s flags were in common use, did one or the other color signify the senior linesman?

USSF answer (May 6, 2008):
Only if the referee said so. Some referees used the red flag for the senior linesman and the yellow for the junior. Some competitions established that as a rule, but it has never been in the Laws as a requirement. The reason for it was simply alphabetical: R comes before Y, ergo R is senior to Y.…

Question:
4.9.08
Yesterday’s MLS match up between NE & KC saw referee Terry Vaughn award KC a penalty kick in the 27th minute. KC’s player was clearly fouled inside the penalty area by a late challenge from NE’s defender. However, the ball made its way to a KC player right in front of the net who had a good scoring opportunity. You can see that Vaughn blew his whistle before the KC player was able to get his shot off on goal. Fortunately for Vaughn the ball went off the goal post and no goal was scored. Even if a goal had been scored, it would have not counted b/c Vaughn had stopped play before the shot.

Here’s my question. Did Vaughn do the right thing? Should Vaughn have called for advantage and allowed the KC player to take the shot on goal? Now, if the player is allowed to take the shot and the same result occurs, the ball goes off the post (no goal), can you then go back to the foul inside the box and award a penalty kick? Or is it simply one or the other?

I know that with the advantage you have a few seconds to see if the play will develop so as to become an advantage if the foul is not called. On the first goal of the game, Vaughn did just that. A foul was committed, he waited a few seconds to see if NE would gain an advantage from no foul being called, the play never developed, so he awarded the foul and NE scored on the free kick. But here, it appears the advantage did develop by the KC forward receiving the ball at his feet right in front of the goal. If advantage is given and the shot is taken, I would think, even if the shot is missed, the foul cannot then be called as if the advantage did not develop, but I’m really not sure. I realize Vaughn did not do this, that he called the foul before the shot was taken, but I’m just speculating what is the right thing to do in these types of situations.

USSF answer (April 16, 2008):
The game at the professional level is usually played and refereed at a much faster pace than our typical games at the school or neighborhood park. Critical refereeing decisions must be made in an instant, with little time to reflect on what might have been. That is one reason that we see the advantage signaled in professional games only after it has already been realized. Sometimes the referee gets it exactly right and sometime he or she does not. The important thing is that the referee at the top levels knows he or she has to make that decision, and does so, rather than dithering.

This position paper issued by USSF on April 11, 2008, may be of interest to you:

From the U.S. Soccer Communications Center:

To: National Referees
National Instructors
National Assessors
State Referee Administrators
State Directors of Instruction
State Directors of Assessment
State Directors of Coaching
From:  Alfred Kleinaitis
Manager of Referee Development and Education
Subject:  Advantage in the Penalty Area
Date:  April 11, 2008

Special circumstances govern the application of advantage for offenses committed by defenders inside their own penalty area. Although the basic concept of advantage remains the same, the specific decision by the referee must be governed by both the close proximity to the goal and the likelihood of scoring from the penalty kick restart if play is stopped instead of applying advantage.

The basic elements of the decision are straightforward:

Advantage is a team concept and thus the referee must be aware not only of the fouled player’s ability to continue his or her attack but also of the ability of any of the player’s teammates to continue the attack themselves.
Advantage has been applied when the decision is made, not when the advantage signal is given. The signal itself may often be delayed for 2-3 seconds while the referee evaluates the advantage situation to determine if it will continue.
Where it does not continue, the Laws of the Game provide for the referee to stop play for the original foul.
If the original foul involved violence, the referee is advised not to apply advantage unless there is an immediate chance of scoring a goal.
Inside the penalty area, the competitive tension is much greater and the referee is called upon to make quicker decisions. The time during which the referee looks for advantage to continue becomes defined by the probability of scoring a goal directly following the foul or from the subsequent play.

In the attached clip of an incident occurring in the 27th minute of a match on April 9 between New England and Kansas City. NE defender #31 (Nyassi) fouls KC attacker #11 (Morsink) near the top of the penalty area. Just as Morsink is fouled, however, he passes the ball to his teammate #19 (Sealy).

The referee properly recognized the advantage but then whistled for the foul against Morsink after he decided that a goal would not be scored by Sealy. In fact, Sealy made a shot on goal just as the whistle sounded and the ball failed to enter the net.

In the absence of a whistle stopping play and if the ball had entered the net, the advantage would clearly have continued and the goal would be counted.
If, in this case, the ball had entered the goal after the whistle had sounded, the goal could not be counted.
Ideally, the referee in this incident should have delayed stopping play for the original foul until he saw more concretely what Sealy would have been able to do with the ball.
In this incident, the penalty kick for the original foul was successful.

Question:
I have been watching the way calling offsides has changed in the last 2 years. All of the instructors assure me that waiting until the ball is touched is almost always necessary before calling offsides. I watch many matches every week. It appears to me that if the rules the local and state guys are telling are true then it appears that we call offsides differently in the USA than they do any where else in the world. Is this the case??

USSF answer (April 8, 2008):
There are only two circumstances in which it might be necessary to wait for an attacker in an offside position to physically touch the ball:

1. The ball is played directly by a teammate to this attacker and the latter makes no move whatsoever as the ball approaches him. If he moves to touch the ball, offside offense. If he doesn’t move but allows the ball to hit him, offside offense. If he continues to make no move and the ball passes him by, no offside offense. If he moves to avoid contact with the ball, no offside offense.

2. The ball is played by a teammate into space.  It is pursued by the attacker in the offside position as well as by another teammate who was not in an offside position, but the referee/AR cannot determine which one will get to the ball first except by seeing who makes the first touch. If it is touched first by the attacker in an offside position, offside offense. If it is touched first by the teammate who was not in an offside position, no offside offense. In this case, if the referee/AR can decide who will clearly get to the ball first before either actually touches the ball, make the decision then about offside offense.

Neither of these two scenarios involves any attacker in an offside position also making any movement which interferes with an opponent.

This is the same position taken by other national associations. We are not certain why you would suggest that our referees would call it any differently from the rest of the world.…