Age on the concept of Law 12

[WalterPinkman]

Hi all,

Just a quick one. I had a thought a while ago on the fact that this may just be based on your style of refereeing but does age matter when deciding on a punishment for a player. For example, if an Open Age goalkeeper DOGSO would you be quicker to hand out the red card than if it was an U13s player. I agree with the concept that age shouldn't matter and if a player commits a foul or breaks a law it should be dealt with the same way with any age. Interesting concept...

Thanks,Ben

 

[HRW]

Nope.

What follows by way of information, instruction etc that accompany the sanction - yes.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

We take a number of things into consideration when determining if (and what) a card should be given. Even across the same match, tolerance levels will change as the players change.

Age and skill is another thing we want to take into consideration.
DOGSO though? If it's DOGSO, it's DOGSO. It's a red card, no matter the age. Sometimes we may be able to stretch the claim that it wasn't really an OGSO though, and you're going to be more likely to do that for a careless offence in a low grade U/13 match, certainly.

Some things - like dissent, aggression and clearly deliberate unsporting acts I'm sometimes quicker on the cards in youth football than adult football!

For the most part the levels of aggression and force behind similar tackles aren't likely to be there at a younger age, and lack of experience/skill/control will be a factor as well, so the referee should take that into consideration.
Having said that, one of the worst things a ref can do is take the 'they're just kids' approach - because there are quite a few kids out there that have been trained to abuse this condescending approach from referees. Too many referees take the approach of cards purely being for match control and if you 'can't control a kids match without cards you shouldn't be refereeing'. This approach is utter garbage and a dangerous thing to tell other referees.

 

[Padfoot]

Never understood referees who claim to have a lower tolerance in youth football.

By their very nature youth players are still maturing and learning about boundaries etc......adults in open age are supposed to be mature and should know better....therefore your tolerance should be the other way round.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

Probably more that you can get away with holding players responsible for their actions and setting a firm line a bit more than you can in an adult match, where half the time putting out too many cards will be worse for your match control than not enough cards.
That, and it tends to be a bit harder to change the behaviour of adults......
It's also about what's normal behaviour. Adult match, more physicality and aggression is just an accepted part of the game, for better or worse. That's less so as you go down in grades/ages. Level of dissent/abuse is part of that.

 

[Peter Grove]

Age and skill is another thing we want to take into consideration.

Agree with this. What constitutes carelessness in a skilled adult player is not the same as for an unskilled youngster.

DOGSO though? If it's DOGSO, it's DOGSO. It's a red card, no matter the age.

And this.

Sometimes we may be able to stretch the claim that it wasn't really an OGSO though, and you're going to be more likely to do that for a careless offence in a low grade U/13 match, certainly.

Not so sure about this though - for me, it's not the nature of the offence that matters in determining whether an OGSO existed, it's the nature of the opportunity itself. So what might be seen as an OGSO for a top level, professional striker, might not be seen as such for an unskilled 9 year-old. The age/skill thing only comes into play (in regards to the offence) in determining whether the offence was careless or not. However as far as I'm concerned, once you've decided that the offence was careless, you can't say the OGSO didn't exist because the careless challenge was committed by a less skilled, less mature player.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

My point was...say you have a player angling away from goal to get around the keeper. There's a point where it's clearly an OGSO. There's a point where it's no longer an OGSO because he's angling too severely away from goal. Then there's a more subjective decision in the middle. Depending on the nature of the match and offence you may be a little more likely to lean one way or another, but there's always an area where some referee will say OGSO, and where some wont. There's not a clear, specific angle where it's no longer OGSO. But as I said, if it's clearly DOGSO then the referee is stuck.

 

[SM]

Never understood referees who claim to have a lower tolerance in youth football.

By their very nature youth players are still maturing and learning about boundaries etc......adults in open age are supposed to be mature and should know better....therefore your tolerance should be the other way round.

I agree Youth players are still learning and pushing boundaries, but to look at it slightly differently there is the need for some behavioural psychology - what you don't punish you encourage. Shame there aren't more punishment options before you have no choice but to go to the pocket, limits the referees options somewhat which is why I guess some referees are more lenient in yoof footie.

As for OA, I agree fully. They should know better.

 

[Brian Hamilton]

SFP, VC, Spitting, DOGSO and OFFINABUS - stop finding reasons not to deal with them.

USB - manage
Dissent - caution to educate
Persistent - caution to educate
Failure to respect distance - caution to educate
Delaying the restart - if obvious, caution to educate
Entering, leaving, re-entering - educate the coach as it's often their fault