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The idea of "active play" only really appeared in the Laws in the 1990's, however there was pretty much always a stipulation that a player in an offside position had to "interfere with play". The thing was, most refs would only consider a player not interfering if he was lying injured by the...

And as a follow up to everyone who is saying "but what about non GK encroachment, they should call that too", I have to say that in my opinion this is a trivial concern. A GK stepping forward can make a HUGE difference to the mindset of the penalty taker. Even if they blaze it wide, the...

It really surprises me that after screeds of posts complaining about keepers moving too early, we now get moaning about an initiative that will change it all. And believe me, so long as the lawmakers don't cave in to the moaners, it will change. As soon as coaches see VAR getting keepers...

I remember an incident many years ago when I was a club linesman (no ARs then!) in England. The referee booked one of the other team's players and asked for his name. The player was totally incensed and screamed at the ref: " Ball@cks ! Ball@cks!!" Then realising he would probably get sent...

To be fair, the Laws of the Game for a long time had a ruling that no goal could be scored by throwing or handling the ball (originally in Law 4, changed in 1938 to Law X). It was only in 1962 that the IFAB added the line that a goalkeeper's throw was OK. In 1997 the major re-write ditched the...

@one: I was very insistent on no-one moving until the ball is kicked. Three of them ran forward on whistle anyway. Thanks to all for comments. Two camps it appears: whistle or wait. @alexgr: Yes a whistle would have been more correct than shouting, but as everyone was clustered in a pretty...

Had an interesting one occur in one of my games last week. Ladies OA, pretty easy game to ref. Red's keeper catches ball. Everyone runs out waiting for her clearance. She puts ball down on ground, looks around for a few seconds, then decides to change her mind and pick it up again. I blow...

Hardly unusual, we already have to determine if a kick to the goalkeeper is deliberate for a "back pass" violation.

Actually I think not. The Laws are now generally going to say NO handling offence if: •the ball touches a player’s hand/arm directly from their own head/body/foot or the head/body/foot of another player who is close/near which will rule out a huge number of the "handballs" that are appealed...

It sure does. I am not sure if this has ever happened in the last 100 years, but it's now gonna get disallowed.

I have been refereeing adult Ladies' games for eight years. One thing I have found, at least here in Australia, is that women are more likely than men to "own up" to things on the pitch. It's quite common for me to see a ball come off two players close together and go over goal line. I may...

The game ends as soon as the defender touches it. No goal. Spirit of the game is not to be invoked just to save the referee from making the hard decisions he or she is paid to make. This is why I fully endorse explaining the situation to the players before the kick is taken. Don't care what...

Pretty much works this way in Rugby.

In your OP you say the foul was "enough to put him off balance" and a second or two later the shot was taken as he was "turning on it off balance". So how on earth can we say that his missing the shot was not affected by the foul? You did not call advantage, so come back for the free kick and...

Had an interesting one a couple of seasons ago. Adult Ladies game, two players (one from each team) start shouting at each other. Worried it might escalate I blew the whistle and run in to calm them down. They both started to walk away, then one lady turned back and made a nasty comment on my...

You would still get teams blasting ball into crowded PA hoping for an accidental Handling call. An IFK in the area is still a potent weapon. But here's an idea right out of left field. Deliberate Handling, still DFK (or penalty) as is now. Any non-deliberate Handling is a dropped ball IN THE...

It has never been an actual change in the Law. What happened was an experiment in a minor tournament back in the 50's or 60's (I believe in England but I need to track down reference) which led to such poor results it was quickly abandoned.

All these attempts to totally take the "deliberate" aspect out of handling were tried in the past. What happened was the attack learned to constantly fire hard kicks. anywhere into penalty area. hoping for a lucky hit on a defender's hand. From what was said at the press conference it sounds...

This was posted on Sky Sports as one of five major changes. 2. No rebounds from penalties One of the changes Gallagher believes will have a big bearing on how we look at football is play stopping for a restart if a penalty is saved or hits the post. This means players will no longer line up on...

Before you take issue with what I said, it would be sensible to read it closely. I am certainly not saying we cannot gripe about changes. Gripe away. Some changes are good, some are bad, and analysis and criticism are healthy and useful. All I took issue with is the "why they are messing...