A&H

Giant clearances

Murri O

Well-Known Member
Had a situation last night that I was wondering how others would have dealt with.

Team yellow were beating team blue by 3 goals to nil.

5 or 10 minutes from the end a player from team blue (who was upset with everybody and everything throughout the match) ran perpendicular to the sideline to deal with a through ball by booting it clear across the adjacent field. (Nobody was playing on that field.) He beat the attacker to the ball by a metre or so.

New ball in from the halfway line and from the resulting throw in he's repeated his effort. New ball in from the other halfway line and he's performed a trifecta. Way over the top clearances when a simple tap out would have done. (Even his own team mates were having a go at him for how ridiculous his clearances were.) We're talking a good 50m or so. (Pretty solid efforts to be fair.)

Given that he was only wasting his own team's time and the game was winding down I did nothing about it.

After the game I was talking to the AR about it and he thinks I should have cautioned him for unsporting conduct. I said I wasn't sure if it was even an infringement and there was no point winding him up any further given he was only disadvantaging his own team.

Which brings me here. Can you caution somebody for clearing the ball clear into next week in the manner that that player did?

Is it against the laws to clear it too far? (I'm not 100% clear on whether this is actually an infringement.)


As a separate question if team blue was winning and the same player did the same thing would that be considered 'time wasting'?

Thanks in advance.
 
The Referee Store
I am fairly sure there is little you can do. There is nothing in the laws about how hard a ball can be put out of play. It could come under spirit of the game I suppose.
The best we can do is make allowances in the time we add on.
 
Get him really riled up and start awarding things against him for the most innocuous things... Might err a bit too much and you can collect his signature for something else!!!
 
Don't go there, he's entitled to hoof it as far as he can. You just need to decide whether any resultant wait for the ball(s) to retrieved warrants added time.
 
I'm going to once again tell the story of the goalkeeper who came out wide to clear a ball, tapped it out of play and then when realising he was about to be caught way out of position, kept going and booted an already inactive ball into the next field. I cautioned him for it and he accepted it with a smile, but it's bugged me for a long time that if he had simply launched it with his first touch rather than his second, I wouldn't have been justified in showing a card.

So specifically in your situation, I agree that your only response is to simply add the time on. Although I'd certainly be keeping an eye on that player from that point forward - if he's frustrated enough to swing a boot at a ball, he's probably not far from doing the same to a player.
 
As above you cant penalise someone for delaying a restart if the ball was in play when they did a paticular action.

I'd just be very clear that every time he does it you are stopping the watch and adding it on.
 
@GraemeS I think you were completely right to issue a card in the scenario above and, no, you couldn't have issued a card if he'd hoofed it whilst the ball was in play. Has been going on for years, and at all levels: last minute of a cup game, one nil up, defender hoofs it into row Z.

However, it is, I think, my biggest irritation, waiting for the ball to be collected (some times from the next county) and players and spectators somehow think that it should be up to me to organise the ball's collection.
 
I had a similar thing many years ago, in a bottom of the table game in our County league. The losers were guaranteed to go down, so as soon as the home team went 1-0 up they started putting the ball as far out of play as they could every time they got it. The ball was repeatedly booted 100 yards away. If the ball went into the crowd then they hung onto it, and the spare balls also seemed to get lost or never quite made it into the FOP, so there was a ridiculous amount of time to be added on. I made sure they knew I was stopping the clock every time, but when we got to the 90 and the home manager asked "how long, Ref!" to be told "12!" his expression was a picture. In that 12 minutes the score went to 2-2 and I sent off one from each team!
I know my mark for the game was extremely poor from the home team because he told me, stating that "you've cost me my **** job!" but as I said to him if it had been the other way he'd have expected me to do something about it, and that was the only thing I could do. Players are quick enough to ask (tell!) us to add time on if the other team are doing this but don't want it when they do so.
Ironically, the point for each team actually meant that both teams stayed up and another team went down instead.
 
Same as above for me, had a relegation crunch and exact same, I played 12 mins extra and had three reds and manager binned in that time, home team who were winning lost 2-1 and I was near chased out the village.
Not easy!
 
Good discussion above and the outcomes / views I agree with - yay :)

Anyone got a problem if said player, from within the FOP, flicks it up to themselves and volleys it over a fence - from which the ball cannot be retrieved ... and then repeats it with the only other ball available - thus ending the game !?!?

(I know this is a touch absurd, and I've never seen it - but ...)
 
Good discussion above and the outcomes / views I agree with - yay :)

Anyone got a problem if said player, from within the FOP, flicks it up to themselves and volleys it over a fence - from which the ball cannot be retrieved ... and then repeats it with the only other ball available - thus ending the game !?!?

(I know this is a touch absurd, and I've never seen it - but ...)


Oh that's good, and something that's went through my all to bored mind before.
I think all you can do, if there is no other ball available and the other ones cannot be retrieved, is call it quits and simply report the facts to the relevant league?
Although, would you allow, say, a time out if someone said "hey, there a retail park 5 mins away and Sports Direct is there" ?
 
Good discussion above and the outcomes / views I agree with - yay :)

Anyone got a problem if said player, from within the FOP, flicks it up to themselves and volleys it over a fence - from which the ball cannot be retrieved ... and then repeats it with the only other ball available - thus ending the game !?!?

(I know this is a touch absurd, and I've never seen it - but ...)
No ball, no game. Abandon and report is all you can do.
Oh that's good, and something that's went through my all to bored mind before.
I think all you can do, if there is no other ball available and the other ones cannot be retrieved, is call it quits and simply report the facts to the relevant league?
Although, would you allow, say, a time out if someone said "hey, there a retail park 5 mins away and Sports Direct is there" ?
Interesting... absolutely play can be suspended. It happens for weather etc. so I cant think of any reason why not... spirit of the game and all that.
However, whats to stop the player doing it with the new balls? Imagine they come back 15 mins later with 2 shiny new balls and said numpty sends them to the graveyard with his next two touches?
Safe option is abandon unless someone offers assurances it'll stop happening deliberately as the poster suggests i.e. he's being subbed and will take no further part.
If not sage bet is call it a day and report why the game was unable to continue.
 
I wonder if anyone has ever turned up, checked kits, park is good, everything fine until 1 min to kick off and you ask for the ball and there is seriously no ball, and no ball avail from anywhere ?
I confess to having used a sized 5 in a kids game where size 4 is required because all else failed and I got both teams permission.....
 
Good discussion above and the outcomes / views I agree with - yay :)

Anyone got a problem if said player, from within the FOP, flicks it up to themselves and volleys it over a fence - from which the ball cannot be retrieved ... and then repeats it with the only other ball available - thus ending the game !?!?

(I know this is a touch absurd, and I've never seen it - but ...)
Again, I've had this! However, I only threatened to abandon - the home team managed to sort it out before it came to that. We have a rec in Thanet which has four pitches next to each other. The end pitch has a school playing field on the other side of a really nasty spiked fence - obviously designed to keep the kids in! There is a groundsman who has a key for the only gate in this fence and is meant to unlock it before games start. One game I had a player put both match balls over the fence inside a minute. At this point we found that the groundsman had not unlocked the gate and had gone awol with the key. The teams expected me to jump over the fence to get the balls, although when I told them no way I then had to stop one from jumping over himself - I've never had to report a player death so that would have been a first! I had to suspend the game and tell them that unless someone could either borrow a ball from another pitch (unlikely, considering the players in my game weren't looking after their own match ball, never mind someone else's) or else find the groundsman and get the key I would have to abandon. Luckily they managed to find him to get the key so we could finish the game.
 
I wonder if anyone has ever turned up, checked kits, park is good, everything fine until 1 min to kick off and you ask for the ball and there is seriously no ball, and no ball avail from anywhere ?
I confess to having used a sized 5 in a kids game where size 4 is required because all else failed and I got both teams permission.....

Not quite ...

... but, my worst game last season, did all the checks etc. and I rejected one of the two balls as it had a large (5cm?) split in the outer leather. So we only had one ball to play with, which spent much time in neighbouring hedges and fields. Home side only had one sub, who was running the line, so no one to go and collect it. Away team & fans started giving me grief for not organising someone to collect it.

Low point came when hoofed over wall into next field. Eventually some old boy went to get it. Eventually he found it in the undergrowth and kicked it back to us. But it became obvious why he was watching and not playing - he shanked the ball into someone's garden ... cue another 5mins of faff. Although all out of my control, many blamed me, my match control was also lost in the long grass, I came close to quitting that day

... much worse than the game when we had archery practice going on behind the goal and I had to be on the ball (forgive the pun) to stop an over eager keeper or attacker racing off to collect the ball (and an arrow) from the range
 
Great replies and stories, thanks heaps.

Would just like to add that in the leagues I ref in there is no time added on. Even for a serious, say broken leg, stoppage. The reasoning is that the other upcoming games will be pushed back and this will cause fixture mayhem.

Should also add that this is a football association rule and not a referee's association rule. (Men's first grade are the only games to have time added on in the region I do.) This game was men's thirds.

PS. Said player was fired up before half time and I'd already had a word with their captain as the teams walked off at half time to tell the player to calm down in the second half. Besides his booting of the ball and more general moaning he was fine.
 
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Great replies and stories, thanks heaps.

Would just like to add that in the leagues I ref in there is no time added on. Even for a serious, say broken leg, stoppage. The reasoning is that the other upcoming games will be pushed back and this will cause fixture mayhem.

Should also add that this is a football association rule and not a referee's association rule. (Men's first grade are the only games to have time added on in the region I do.) This game was men's thirds.

PS. Said player was fired up before half time and I'd already had a word with their captain as the teams walked off at half time to tell the player to calm down in the second half. Besides his booting of the ball and more general moaning he was fine.
Given this, I think you'll have to email your RDO (or equivalent) and ask them what the correct action would be? As it does seem fairly unfair to me not to add the time back on if a player is being a ***** and wasting everyone's time.
 
Great replies and stories, thanks heaps.

Would just like to add that in the leagues I ref in there is no time added on. Even for a serious, say broken leg, stoppage. The reasoning is that the other upcoming games will be pushed back and this will cause fixture mayhem.
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Incredible! In the leagues I referee in, not adding the time would cause mayhem!
In my game above, it was a local derby between two teams who played in the same division on Saturday and Sunday, and no love lost. The home team kicked with the strong end-to-end wind in the first half and went 1-0 up, then tried to hold it in the second by launching it as far as they could to run the clock down. If I hadn't obviously been adding time on there would have been a riot, on and off the pitch, and ambulances would have been needed! It was bad enough as it was.
Losing a relegation match to a local rival is bad enough, but losing because they kept kicking the ball away would have caused chaos. If you can't stop the clock even for serious injuries perhaps you have to play too many games.
 
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