The Ref Stop

Back pass.

one said:
In futsal of course the keeper does not always have to pick it up for it to be an offence. The two touch offence is important to not make it a defensive game. And for that reason the 'back pass' law (including two touch) is applied with a much bigger net.
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OK, you want more!


"after playing the ball, wherever on the pitch, touches it again in his/her own half of the pitch after it has been deliberately played to the goalkeeper by a team-mate without an opponent playing or touching it;

touches the ball with the hands or arms inside his/her own penalty area after it has been deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper by a team-mate"

Interesting that the only difference in the wording is "played" (IDFK 2 touch offence) vs "kicked" (IDFK handling offence). So, a 2 touch offence can come from any deliberate play on the ball.

Where am I going with this - both these say "deliberately played/kicked to the goalkeeper" but in futsal (as James said) it's interpreted as a deliberate play/kick that goes to the goalkeeper but in football we seem to want to interpret it as a deliberate kick intentionally to the goalkeeper.

Surely it should be aligned in both codes, no? Better wording IMHO would be "deliberately kicked and touched by the goalkeeper with the hands or arms". Get rid of the "to" ;)
 
The Ref Stop
Agree that it has to be better worded so the intention is clear. Here is an example I gave in the last lifecycle of the backpass discussions. A great song by Santana called "black magic woman". It's not clear if it's a woman who does black magic or if it a black woman who does magic. While in a song it's not important, in the "laws" of a game with a global budget more thanks many countries, it is.

Where I was going with futsal is that I think they should not be alighned because of different dynamics. I think for football it should be only for kicks intended for the keeper. For futsal it should be any deliberate play of the ball even if it's not intended for the keeper (applied to both backpass and two touch).
 
Wait so in Futsal, the keeper plays the ball to a defender, he gets pressured, tries to clear it but that deflects of another defender to the goal and the keeper will then get penalized for trying to save it?
 
The law says that it is an indirect free kick offence if a goalkeeper:

touches the ball with the hand/arm [...] after it has been deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper by a team-mate
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The only way this could mean that it is still an offence even if the ball was not intended for the goalkeeper, is if you remove the words, "to the goalkeeper."

So if the law said that it is an offence if a goalkeeper "touches the ball with the hand/arm after it has been deliberately kicked by a team mate" then those who think that any deliberate kick, whether intended for the keeper or not, should be penalised, would be right.

However it doesn't say that - it says that the ball must be deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper. I don't think the law could be much clearer as to what it's intent is.

It's also worth noting that this is the way the law has always been interpreted ever since it was introduced in 1992 (except in the US of course where for many years their official guidance was to act as if the words "to the goalkeeper" were not part of the law).

I've said this before but I think there's a phrase that the IFAB used in a circular in 1993 that although it was intended for a slightly different part of the law (circumvention) is highly applicable here.

The phrase was that:
the referee must only be convinced that this was the player’s motive
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So if we apply this to a "back pass" then the referee has to be convinced that the player's motive in kicking the ball, was to direct it to their goalkeeper.

If that wasn't the player's motive/intent then there is no offence.

You also have to be alert for cases where the player kicks a ball that doesn't necessarily go straight to the keeper, but where you judge that the player's intent was to get it to their keeper nonetheless.
 
Peter Grove said:
You also have to be alert for cases where the player kicks a ball that doesn't necessarily go straight to the keeper, but where you judge that the player's intent was to get it to their keeper nonetheless.
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I would extend this (because the laws don't/can't cover every scenario), if the intent was to get it to another non-keeper team mate but that team mate deliberately leaves it for the keeper to pick it up. As I mentioned earlier, the first case would be a quite warning.
 
Think this thread is another that is in danger of over analysis of the wording in the LOTG.

The backpass law was devised to stop what we saw in the late 1980's and early 1990's where a goalkeeper would have the ball, roll it out to one of their defenders, who would then knock it back to the keeper who would pick it up and repeat the process.

If the player deliberatelykicks the ball back to the goalkeeper and they pick it up, then it's an IFK. If you can't be certain that the ball was deliberately kicked back to the keeper, then you should not penalise.

Skill level also has a lot to do with your decision. The higher the skill level the more likely that the ball is going to go exactly where the player intends, whereas on a Sunday morning pub game, it could literally go anywhere (including back to the keeper!)
 
I remember playing when the rule came in. Was a mess the first few weeks in kids football as us kids kept forgetting the new law. But its the best law in football. Can you imagine if there was no back pass law now with 4g pitches. Go 1-0 up and just keep passing the ball back to the keeper from anywhere. At least on muddy pitches there was an element of risk to this ultra defensive tactic.

Anyway, regarding back passes. Unless it is absolutely 100% obvious that a player has passed it back to the keeper and there's no way you can give anything other than an IDFK then I am just playing on. The fuss and mess there is in trying to sort out an IDFK 6 yards from goal is such a hassle that I'm only giving it if I have to. Any doubt at all and we're playing on :)
 
Russell Jones said:
What about if they deliberately kick the ball forward to the goalkeeper ...? :):rolleyes:
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I had that exact debate in a game. A defender controlled the ball near to the goal line with his foot, and then called for the keeper to come and get it. Keeper picked it up so I gave an IDFK, to mass cries of "but it didn't go backwards ref" :wall:
 
Peter Grove said:
The law says that it is an indirect free kick offence if a goalkeeper:



The only way this could mean that it is still an offence even if the ball was not intended for the goalkeeper, is if you remove the words, "to the goalkeeper."

So if the law said that it is an offence if a goalkeeper "touches the ball with the hand/arm after it has been deliberately kicked by a team mate" then those who think that any deliberate kick, whether intended for the keeper or not, should be penalised, would be right.

However it doesn't say that - it says that the ball must be deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper. I don't think the law could be much clearer as to what it's intent is.

It's also worth noting that this is the way the law has always been interpreted ever since it was introduced in 1992 (except in the US of course where for many years their official guidance was to act as if the words "to the goalkeeper" were not part of the law).

I've said this before but I think there's a phrase that the IFAB used in a circular in 1993 that although it was intended for a slightly different part of the law (circumvention) is highly applicable here.

The phrase was that:

So if we apply this to a "back pass" then the referee has to be convinced that the player's motive in kicking the ball, was to direct it to their goalkeeper.

If that wasn't the player's motive/intent then there is no offence.

You also have to be alert for cases where the player kicks a ball that doesn't necessarily go straight to the keeper, but where you judge that the player's intent was to get it to their keeper nonetheless.
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You'd think that after 28 years FIFA might have come up with an unambiguous wording.
 
snap_RL said:
Thanks @ChasTutorObserver . Doesn't the deliberate 'knee pass' circumvent the law though? Undeniably deliberate in that clip?
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The clip showed an error by the referee, who appeared to believe the defending team player had kicked the ball to the goalkeeper. Circumventing the law was introduced because when this law was originally introduced (some years ago now) a player in Germany knelt down and kneed the ball back to his goalkeeper, who had played it to the defender from a goal kick. It immediately became an offence to circumvent ("cheat"!) by (for example) a player flicking the ball up with his foot and then using his body to play it to the goalkeeper. In the clip, the ball was knee high so acceptable to knee it back, in the same way as if it had been headed back if it had been head high.
 
ChasTutorObserver said:
The clip showed an error by the referee, who appeared to believe the defending team player had kicked the ball to the goalkeeper. Circumventing the law was introduced because when this law was originally introduced (some years ago now) a player in Germany knelt down and kneed the ball back to his goalkeeper, who had played it to the defender from a goal kick. It immediately became an offence to circumvent ("cheat"!) by (for example) a player flicking the ball up with his foot and then using his body to play it to the goalkeeper. In the clip, the ball was knee high so acceptable to knee it back, in the same way as if it had been headed back if it had been head high.
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I think the circumvention was originally for kicking the ball up in order to head it back to the GK (or for another player to head it to the GK, which gave rise to whether the player kicking it up or the player heading it to the keeper should be cautioned).
 
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