The Ref Stop

New goal kick trick

The Ref Stop
It’s clear trickery, poor from the officials to allow that.

I’d say it’s the goalkeeper who would be cautioned. There’s no offence until he handles the ball
 
Clear circumvention, agree it's the GK who should be cautioned, slightly disagree with the reasoning!

The caution goes to the player who's attempted to circumvent the law. In this case, I'd suggest by chipping the ball to the defenders head, the GK is clearly asking for it to be headed back to him - once he's in that situation, the defender isn't really given a choice. The handling is kind of irrelevant (other than "confirming" the offence), as the card will be for the trickery carried out by the GK.
 
Very very interesting!

How many of us would have penalised this under the old laws, with a defender standing on the edge of the penalty area heading it back to the GK under the same circumstances? Not many I suspect, probably because the skill level required in so doing was reasonably high.

Now though, the situation is completely different. Because with attackers forced to be outside the area, there's nothing stopping a (high quality) defending team doing this on every single goal kick. It's obviously not what the new law intended but it's different to the previous forms of trickery where the GK wasn't actually involved (hence we penalised the defender and did so regardless of whether the GK actually picked it up!). In this new case I'm not sure who to caution ... the GK could claim he had no idea the defender would head it back to him. The defender could just say he was responding to the situation that faced him.

In reality, if this happens in one of my games (without further clarification from IFAB), I'm leaning towards allowing the first occasion but then at the next stoppage making it clear to the captain that I will deem any future occurences to be trickery and penalise accordingly. But hopefully it'll get cleared up before that happens!!
 
Clear circumvention, agree it's the GK who should be cautioned, slightly disagree with the reasoning!

The caution goes to the player who's attempted to circumvent the law. In this case, I'd suggest by chipping the ball to the defenders head, the GK is clearly asking for it to be headed back to him - once he's in that situation, the defender isn't really given a choice. The handling is kind of irrelevant (other than "confirming" the offence), as the card will be for the trickery carried out by the GK.

The trickery doesn't come until the keeper handles the ball though, right? Which is a tricky sell when a keeper can't be cautioned for any handling offence
 
The trickery doesn't come until the keeper handles the ball though, right? Which is a tricky sell when a keeper can't be cautioned for any handling offence
But my argument gets you round that problem too - you're not cautioning him for handling, you're actually cautioning him for flicking the ball up with the intention of circumventing the "backpass" law!
 
But my argument gets you round that problem too - you're not cautioning him for handling, you're actually cautioning him for flicking the ball up with the intention of circumventing the "backpass" law!
By that argument you could also end up cautioning players all over the pitch. Player A passes the ball in the air to Player B, who then heads it back to Player C (GK). In your example Player A has committed the offence by playing it in the air as a way to circumvent the backpass law.

I'd only see it as circumvention in the original instance if either the ball was controlled and then flicked up on to the head to make the pass back, or it was a blatant trick (i.e. The ball was on the floor and he's then "headed" it back)

Reality is, this is novelty factor. Teams might get away with it once or twice in a game, but the opposition will soon get wise. The packet needs to be played to guarantee a clean head back to the keeper is such that there is a chance of the attacker making ground to close the keeper down, likewise if the ball is too heavy it adds in risk in terms of the keeper getting the ball cleanly back.

Also if the intent of the keeper is to get the ball back son he can then quickly fly kick it, don't forget if pumps it long from a fly kick then his attackers can be offside, whereas they cannot from a goal kick.

I'd say the gains that a team can earn by doing this are outweighed by the risks of things that could go wrong (maybe not at the very top of the game, but certainly further down the pyramid where we operate).
 
It should say old trick with new restart. Players did it from free kicks in the past.

Take a pick for the caution, they are both in it. If intent is clear, it wont matter if the keeper touches the ball as per LOTG.

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Cautioning player seems more correct in law as he made the 'pass'.
 
As I see it, the law is quite clear on who gets the caution here. The trickery is by (and the caution is for) the player who uses a deliberate trick to contrive a situation whereby the the foot does not have to be used to pass the ball to the keeper. In this case, it is the goalkeeper who has committed the offence (when he flicks the ball up to the defender's head, not when he handles the ball). A keeper handling a ball that is headed to him is not committing an offence. Also, the defender has not committed an offence; heading a ball that arrives at you at head height, when you did not use a deliberate trick to get it there, is not an offence.

Don't forget, when FIFA Circular 488 was issued, the IFAB gave us examples of what constitutes a deliberate trick, one of which was, "a player who deliberately flicks the ball [up] with his feet ..." Now at that time, the scenario of one player flicking the ball up to another had not been put into the law (that came later) but flicking the ball up, whether to yourself or another player is clearly what breaches the intent of the law, not heading it after it's been flicked up.

The player who flicked the ball up is the goalkeeper, so for me, he is the one who has committed the offence of using a deliberate trick here.
 
Lets not confuse the word trick here for ball trickery e.g. joggling etc.

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(the only other time it is used in law it has equated it to the word mislead)

As I said, they are both equally in the trick. I used the 'pass' part to pick one but if you like to caution the keeper, I'd be just as happy :)
 
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As I see it, the law is quite clear on who gets the caution here. The trickery is by (and the caution is for) the player who uses a deliberate trick to contrive a situation whereby the the foot does not have to be used to pass the ball to the keeper. In this case, it is the goalkeeper who has committed the offence (when he flicks the ball up to the defender's head, not when he handles the ball). A keeper handling a ball that is headed to him is not committing an offence. Also, the defender has not committed an offence; heading a ball that arrives at you at head height, when you did not use a deliberate trick to get it there, is not an offence.

Don't forget, when FIFA Circular 488 was issued, the IFAB gave us examples of what constitutes a deliberate trick, one of which was, "a player who deliberately flicks the ball [up] with his feet ..." Now at that time, the scenario of one player flicking the ball up to another had not been put into the law (that came later) but flicking the ball up, whether to yourself or another player is clearly what breaches the intent of the law, not heading it after it's been flicked up.

The player who flicked the ball up is the goalkeeper, so for me, he is the one who has committed the offence of using a deliberate trick here.
So Peter, how far away do you think the defensive player needs to be before this becomes a legitimate part of the game rather than a deliberate trick? As I said in an earlier post, I don't believe many / any of us would have penalised a similar play last season with the defender standing on the edge of the area .....
 
So Peter, how far away do you think the defensive player needs to be before this becomes a legitimate part of the game rather than a deliberate trick? As I said in an earlier post, I don't believe many / any of us would have penalised a similar play last season with the defender standing on the edge of the area .....
If a player had done that last season, I would expect everyone to be picking up on it as a trick. If the defender isn’t being challenge and it’s clearly be chipped to him, it’s obviously been planned. There’s 3 parts of the play, none of them are accidental
 
Last season, outside the box = IDFK, YC to GK
This season, inside the box = retake, YC to GK
This season, outside the box = IDFK, YC to GK

Yes, I'd have given this every time under the old laws - the first time. It's a blatant deliberate trick, you don't have to coach, manage or over-sell this.

And I am with Peter's explanation and citation of previous guidance - though TBH I think the LotG reads that the player that plays the ball to the GK should be sanctioned, no matter what the trick technique - but I'll take the guidance;)
 
An utterly unsurprising development. Nice that IFAB saw it coming and, er, oops, they were perhaps the only ones not seeing this coming.
Would have been so easy to put something in to make it clear that was not OK. (I don't think the key issue on this is so much the teammate is not being challenged as that he can't be challenged. So a distance that might be OK outside the PA is still problematic if it happens inside the PA where no challenge is possible. That said, in practical terms, I don't think I'm making this call on a first occurrence--it's going to feel like a "gotcha" call, and the sanction is not only the caution, but a clear scoring opportunity for the other team. So (at least in the immediate term), I'm going to clearly explain if it happens that it better not happen again (which I heard elsewhere is what the ref in that game did, warning both GKs). (At the professional level, I wouldn't be surprised to see leagues telling players it will be called rather than letting them find out the hard way, which would be very unsatisfactory as a way for a goal to be scored.)
 
I expect to see a few teams trying to find different ways to bend the laws like this. Personally if I see a team do this I'll probably call it a moving ball the first time and say retake. "and while we're about it lads. We call that circumventing and it's a mandatory caution! Don't do it again!"
If the team have any sense (unlikely!) they'll say thanks and kick it properly. If they don't then the next time they try something clever they won't get a second chance.
 
It’s clear trickery, poor from the officials to allow that.

I’d say it’s the goalkeeper who would be cautioned. There’s no offence until he handles the ball
The law states this can be punished regardless if the player actually handles.
 
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