Open Goal Distraction.

Had an incident in my game Saturday that set me thinking. Blue attacker breaks down left wing, challenged by keeper at left edge of Penalty area. Attacker evades keeper and crosses to teammate on penalty spot who has a header at a completely open goal. He misses! I give goal kick, all is well.

But as the player runs past me, he claims that a defender shouted and distracted him. I didn't hear anything so am OK with my decision but my question is - what if a defender had shouted "leave it" and the attacker had left it? Would it be a case of DOGSO, a red and a PK? Anywhere else on the pitch I would have given IDFK and a yellow.

If the attacker headed wide and I did hear a defender shout, what then? Surely not DOGSO as the attacker didn't leave it, had the opportunity but missed. Do I caution the defender and restart with a goalkick? Surely then the attackers would want more!

the only punishment available is yellow for unsporting and indirect free kick, despite the effect of causing a missed open goal

If a defender shouted "leave it" and the attacker did, then that is an obvious call of "verbally distracts an opponent", as you say normally IFK and yellow card. But if it takes away a goal scoring opportunity, then it is a clear case of DOGSO - which only requires that it be a matter of denying a goal scoring opportunity "by an offense punishable by a free kick", and you will give an IFK.

The second problem is slightly trickier. The wording of "verbally distracts" an opponent is slightly ambiguous. Does ATTEMPTING to distract count? I would say not...if the player was not distracted then it might still merit a word with the defender but no need to go DOGSO. But hang on, how can you be sure the player did not miss through hearing the shout? He never actually left the ball, but it might have distracted him enough to put him off. Here, I would simply be guided by the striker's reaction ... if he just reacts as to a normal miss, then no distraction...if he turns and says "hey ref, did you hear that?!", then another case of DOGSO and a red card.

So if I go DOGSO, show the defender a red card, then I can't give an IFK - it has to be a penalty doesn't it? How could you sell the DOGSO then IFK?

Robert Neale said:

So if I go DOGSO, show the defender a red card, then I can't give an IFK - it has to be a penalty doesn't it? How could you sell the DOGSO then IFK?

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You can't, it has to be a penalty. If you give an IDFK, then it is not a RC for a DOGSO!

.... Where a player commits an offence against an opponent within their own penalty area which denies an opponent an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and the referee awards a penalty kick, the offender is cautioned if the offence was an attempt to play the ball; in all other circumstances (e.g. holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the ball etc.) the offending player must be sent off.

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There is nothing that says it has to be a penalty. The Law quoted by Lincs22 clearly says "where a player commits an offence....AND the referee awards a penalty kick" this is not saying the referee HAS to give a penalty, merely giving instructions what to do IF a penalty has to be given.

USSF explained this very clearly:

"Referees are reminded that offenses which deny a goalscoring opportunity are not limited to those punishable by a direct free kick or penalty kick but may include misconduct or those fouls for which the restart is an indirect free kick. An example would be a player, including the goalkeeper, hanging from the crossbar to play the ball away with his or her body."

So, in our OP example, yellow card for USB (verbal distraction) gets upped to red for DOGSO-F but the restart is still an IFK.

IFK taken from twhere the opponent was at the time.

I had this in a game a while back. The match was a cup semi final, with team A leading by a goal. A team B player took the ball to the goal line past the goalkeeper before cutting it back to a colleague two yards out to roll into an empty goal. A defender behind the player shouted "leave it!" putting the player off and he left the ball. The shouter then cleared the ball.
As I stopped play the game went ballistic. Team B felt seriously aggrieved and I really thought the game was going to kick off. I called the player in and sent him for DOGSO (he'd committed two offences so I penalised the more serious). This calmed the atmosphere a lot, although neither team could see why I could send the player off and not give a penalty.
I then gave an IFK on the 6 yard line. Even though this was missed and team A went on to hold on and win the game, team B felt justice had been served and it was their fault they hadn't scored against ten men. If I hadn't sent the shouter off I would have sent several others off because they looked like wanted to kill him and the game was on the point of boiling over!

This has come up before, and there was confusion about whether this was the correct action. I therefore emailed IFAB to confirm, and received the following reply from David Elleray (he keeps really long hours: I sent my email at 10pm last night and he replied at 11pm!)

"Dear Mark
Thank you for your e mail.
You were right to dismiss the player as he was guilty of an offence punishable by a free kick which is the requirement of Law ; as his offence was not an attempt to play the ball he was guilty of a red card DOGSO offence
Best wishes

David
David Elleray
Technical Director of The IFAB"

Here is a bit of technicality. Was this offence punishable by a free kick? Or wast it punishable by a caution and an indirect free kick is just the method of restart you use if you stop play for the caution (just like dissent)? That is, the free kick is not the punishment, the caution is.

Once again the wording of the LOTG leaves more to be desired

I did raise that point in the wording of my question - "a colleague believes I was wrong because no actual offence was committed against the player. The game was stopped to caution him for unsporting conduct, and a free kick is the resulting restart not a direct result of the player's action", to which he stated that "he was guilty of an offence punishable by a free kick", so in IFABs view the offence is punishable by a caution AND a free kick.
I think that if the LOTG covered everything properly then it would have to be written in a legal format, and no one would then understand it. Putting it in a form that is easily understood means that not everything is written in a way that covers every eventuality.

one said:

Here is a bit of technicality. Was this offence punishable by a free kick? Or wast it punishable by a caution and an indirect free kick is just the method of restart you use if you stop play for the caution (just like dissent)? That is, the free kick is not the punishment, the caution is.

Once again the wording of the LOTG leaves more to be desired

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Verbal distraction is punishable by indirect free kick as per lotg.

Indirect free kick
An indirect free kick is awarded if a player:
• plays in a dangerous manner
• impedes the progress of an opponent without any contact being made
• is guilty of dissent, using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or
gestures or other verbal offences

It was also in the faqs for 16-17 lotg that it is a free kick offence.

JamesL said:

Indirect free kick
An indirect free kick is awarded if a player:
• plays in a dangerous manner
• impedes the progress of an opponent without any contact being made
• is guilty of dissent, using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or
gestures or other verbal offences

It was also in the faqs for 16-17 lotg that it is a free kick offence.

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We havn't moved the the 17-18 version yet. Good to see its been fixed

Also noted your reference to FAQs.

markref said:

"a colleague believes I was wrong because no actual offence was committed against the player. The game was stopped to caution him for unsporting conduct, and a free kick is the resulting restart not a direct result of the player's action"

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That was an argument that could be made (and quite often was) prior to 2016 as the law wasn't totally clear as to why the IFK was being awarded after play was stopped to caution a player - was it because of the offence or was it just a way to restart because play had been stopped and not directly as a result of the offence?

However since 2016 I think that is no longer an argument we can make - the law is clear that:

An indirect free kick is awarded if a player [...] commits any other offence, not mentioned in the Laws, for which play is stopped to caution or send off a player

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We should also point out here another loophole closed by new Laws. There was once a problem if a player temporarily off the field for an injury, ran on without getting the referee's permission and booted the ball away as it rolled towards an empty net. The problem? Well the only actual OFFENCE committed was in entering the pitch, the kicking of the ball was in no way illegal: you could disallow the goal, give an IFK where the player entered, but DOGSO could not apply since the actual free kick was not for an offence that prevented a goal (though a caution would be given for illegal entry). Now however entering without permission is one offence and then interfering with play is a separate DIRECT free kick offence of itself, and so DOGSO becomes a possibility. This is true if the ball is played outside the PA: remember though, that if the illegal player kicks away the ball in the PA, it is now a PK...and since the offence was caused by a genuine attempt to play the ball, it's only a YC anyway!

Ganajin said:

We should also point out here another loophole closed by new Laws. There was once a problem if a player temporarily off the field for an injury, ran on without getting the referee's permission and booted the ball away as it rolled towards an empty net. The problem? Well the only actual OFFENCE committed was in entering the pitch, the kicking of the ball was in no way illegal: you could disallow the goal, give an IFK where the player entered, but DOGSO could not apply since the actual free kick was not for an offence that prevented a goal (though a caution would be given for illegal entry). Now however entering without permission is one offence and then interfering with play is a separate DIRECT free kick offence of itself, and so DOGSO becomes a possibility. This is true if the ball is played outside the PA: remember though, that if the illegal player kicks away the ball in the PA, it is now a PK...and since the offence was caused by a genuine attempt to play the ball, it's only a YC anyway!

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Hmmmm...

Would you not invoke the no possibility to play the ball by virtue of the fact that they shouldnt be on the pitch?

I think the point is that they would need to commit further misconduct when on the pitch (even if they denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity by kicking the ball away, for instance). For me the laws as they are indicate that interfering with play warrants a DFK restart, but the punishment for the offender is still covered by 'entering the field of play without the referee's permission'.
Interestingly, I have just realised that law 3.7 doesn't actually mention players, only substitutes, team officials and outside agents. Would this procedure still be the correct restart if it was an injured player?

SLI39 said:

I think the point is that they would need to commit further misconduct when on the pitch (even if they denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity by kicking the ball away, for instance). For me the laws as they are indicate that interfering with play warrants a DFK restart, but the punishment for the offender is still covered by 'entering the field of play without the referee's permission'.
Interestingly, I have just realised that law 3.7 doesn't actually mention players, only substitutes, team officials and outside agents. Would this procedure still be the correct restart if it was an injured player?

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Move on to 3.8

SLI39 said:

I think the point is that they would need to commit further misconduct when on the pitch (even if they denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity by kicking the ball away, for instance). For me the laws as they are indicate that interfering with play warrants a DFK restart, but the punishment for the offender is still covered by 'entering the field of play without the referee's permission'.
Interestingly, I have just realised that law 3.7 doesn't actually mention players, only substitutes, team officials and outside agents. Would this procedure still be the correct restart if it was an injured player?

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Also the lotg state the referee should punish the more serious offence in terms of sanction/restart so in this case it would be red card and penalty as the player has committed an offence punishable by free kick that resulted in dogso.

Thank you!
Ah, that's interesting. For some reason I always took 'offence punishable by a free kick' to mean that even a substitute/injured player would have to come onto the pitch AND commit further misconduct, but you persuade me otherwise.
Does this also mean that if you enter without permission and then commit dissent it's only a caution for the more serious offence of dissent?
EDIT: Sorry for the double post.