A&H

Giving an away team penalty in the dying moments

SM

SM

The avuncular one
So, dying moments of a league OA match that the home team are winning by a goal. Not much of a game until the few minutes. Couple of cautions during the game for reckless tackles. Bit routine, no real excitement. The final few minutes were action packed, but did not improve the football. At all. :)

Ball is on the right flank with the blue away team. I am standing just outside the penalty area, a yard or so past the edge of the 6 yard box, looking in the area. Throw In to the blues and the ball is thrown to a player who crosses into the penalty area to a waiting team mate who makes a short sprint on to it. I am looking directly at this guy, who is side on to me. A yellow player mirrors his run, just behind him and subtly sticks both hands into the blue players back as blue controls the ball, pushing him over (blue player forced to put his hands onto the grass to stop himself falling over) and making him miscontrol the ball which goes out of play. I am at an angle where I can see the hands clearly in the blue players back - looks to me like the defender couldn't quite get as tight as he would like to the blue player and tried to pressure him unfairly. This is the sort of push you only see with a good side on angle, which I have, from other angles it looks like it's possibly a good bit of tight marking (difficult to describe, but you know what I mean). Blow, penalty.

Cue: CHAOS! :devil:

Game ends a draw. The thought occurred to me after the game, I could have made an easier choice and let play continue (restart with a goal kick) and ignore what I had seen. No one would have cared (a few away team players maybe). However, I would care as it would make me a cheat. Even with all the ensuing chaos, sendings off and misconduct reports plus supporter abuse I had to endure (walking through the supporters to the changing room was an adrenaline fuelled moment of tension) given the opportunity to relive this situation - you bet your ass I would do exactly the same thing.

So let us consider no surprises refereeing - None of the supporters saw the push (based on the torrent of abuse). Barely any players would have seen it. Is there there anyone on here who would just take the easy option, just ignore it and let play continue? No surprises? Discuss.
 
The Referee Store
Sounds like you got urself in a great position good side view and you give the right decision, I just give what I see and if it's a penalty then so be it,
 
That's a tough one monkey.

I would answer the same way I always tell my staff if they have a difficult dilemma with a customer at work: take the right option, not the easy option.

Nobody can question the right option, but they can the easy option. It's a difficult one though.
 
head says give the penalty everytime ...... but will the lips agree and blow the whistle straight away

he who hesitates is lost - or at least royally abused :)
 
Absolutely! Be confident in your own opinion and ability to handle the game. I had a similar situation in a cup tie a few years back, and to make matters worse the manager was known as being one of the most abusive in the league. Thankfully he started to complain and I threatened to report him and that was that!
 
The reason I get out of bed on cold Sunday mornings is to get those decisions right. Knowing it was a nailed on penalty that I spotted means the world to me as I'm doing my job properly. It might not please everyone, but we aren't there we are there to enforce the lotg and sounds like you got it spot on.

Plus quite often you can't judge the sort of reaction you'll get making a decision. I've seen massive kick offs over the smallest tackle and other times I've blown and expected someone to come and knock my teeth out and everyone accepts the decision. It's a funny old game.
 
For me, id give it, id rather have 10 mins of shouting at me (even though id know i was right) than going home, reflecting on it and thinking 'why did you do that, Steve?'. The most critical person of my performances is me, I just dont let players get to me.
 
This is why a forum is great. As a new referee it is great to read these scenarios and everyone's opinion on it, and even better when you share that same opinion.

I think it is easy to turn up, take an easy game and take the money. We are there to enforce the lotg. Simple. If in our opinion it is a penalty. It is
a penalty. If the teams wish to kick off and in
our opinion the require red cards, so be it. You didn't push him over you just saw it, gave it and dealt with it.

I had almost the exact same scenario in u16 on Sunday. Was in a great position to see someone pulled over last minute from a corner. Gave the
peno, scored, game finished 1-1. I owe it the each team to give what I see. The only difference in tales is that no one really kicked off about it which was a bonus.
 
I gave a penalty in the 92nd Minute on Sat. Green stretches to tackle but trips Purple striker in the box. It was 3-3 at the time. Greens had thrown away a 3-1 lead too. :hmmm:
Got quite a bit of stick for that but it was definitely a Pen. I was being assessed too and he said I got it spot on.
 
if you see it, give it! i always tell players that i cant give what i dont see...

also, i bet i could guarentee pound to a penny that if you did give it then the away team would have definitly kicked off, 1-0 down and the oppotunity in the last second too equalise
 
Gary Milton said:
We are there to enforce the lotg. Simple. If in our opinion it is a penalty. It is
a penalty. If the teams wish to kick off and in our opinion the require red cards, so be it. You didn't push him over you just saw it, gave it and dealt with it.

I had almost the exact same scenario in u16 on Sunday. Was in a great position to see someone pulled over last minute from a corner. Gave the
peno, scored, game finished 1-1. I owe it the each team to give what I see.
Click to expand...

Part of the eternal difficulty for referees is the perception of others, be they players, spectators or even fellow referees.

We are there to enforce the lotg but we can only give what we see (less of a truism where NAR's are involved).

We are always going to miss things that others see or do. Take the example of a corner. What do we do, generally we try to scan as much as we can before the kick is taken and then tend to focus on the drop zone as the ball comes in, (or the first defender if it's an England corner). Practically impossible to see every push or pull, pinch, punch or shirt tug even if our sight lines are clear, which is rarely, if ever, the case in the penalty area at a corner.

so one referee sees a clear push and gives a penalty, another referee sees a pull and gives a penalty, great, but there will always be infringements that we miss so that, however good a job we think we've done in awarding that penalty, we may well have failed to make the correct decision in terms of which infringement happened first.

someone else will see that, someone else will know that and we'll get abuse......and so it continues
 
I think your examples underline how important good and varied positioning is Haywain.

Obviously there are basic 'good' positions to get into for the first few corners of a game, but to see the infringements after the first few you have to adapt your position to the expectation on play based on how the first few corners have gone.

Like you say you can't say everything every time but only good and varied positioning will turn the ratios more in your favour.
 
Haywain, you are spot on it is almost impossible to be certain that the one you see is the one which occurs first, to be honest I never thought of it from that perspective.

All we can do is see it, give it. Don't see it can't give it. ... its like it never happened... try telling that to the coaches!! Haha
 
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