A&H

IFK in penalty area.

G

Ganajin

Well-Known Member
Level 3 Referee
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 the whistle, IFK to blue just about 3 yards from goal. No arguments from anyone.

I explain to them what happened, and spot the ball on the goal area line, six yards out. I tell defenders they either need to be 10 yards away or stand on goal line between posts. Everyone lines up, and I warn defenders not to move until ball is kicked. So far I am mentally congratulating myself on perfect management of the unusual game situation.

All in position, I blow whistle. Immediately three defenders race forward off line. I call out "No no no!! Let's do that again". As I am doing this, the forward taking the kick has just tapped the ball sideways to her friend, who lifts the most astonishing lob over the onrushing defenders, and it bounces down on the goal line in the gap they had just vacated, and rolls into the net.

I was mortified. I explained that since I had called out to stop the kick, this could not count. They all took it in good part (they were several goals down at this point). The forward saying with a smile "Aww ref. I'll never be able to do that again". She was right, and the retake came to nothing. At the end of the game I did apologise, but they all seemed to find it more amusing than anything else.

Now I realise that it would have been far better to wait and see the outcome before stopping play (even though I did not whistle, I did effectively stop play). But I was worried that if I did not react quickly the ball would ricochet around for a while, then get cleared, and I would have a hard sell to come back to retake the kick. The encroaching defenders were about 2 yards from kicker when she played her amazing lob, and I never dreamed of this outcome.

That's football I suppose....
 
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As soon as I sense danger like that, I'm blowing on the whistle. Everyone can hear it, even if it's then a bit awkward, at least players can have no argument that they didn't know the game was stopped rather than just using your voice. Other than that, not much you can do really
 
Hi
A simple wait and see sorts it. Easy in hindsight we know yet what would have been wrong with a retake if it hit an encroaching defender. It is an easier explanation about breaking Law 13 rather than chalking off a goal. Indeed for that matter it can still be a retake even if it does not.
Here is a video of Terge Hauge explaining his decision in the 2006 CL final. It took Barca until after 75 minutes to equalise and the 80th minute to get a winner. As he said himself too quick with my whistle.
https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/video/referees/videoid=746585.html
Indeed now if Lehmann was deemed to make a genuine attempt to play the ball and it was inside the penalty area with the resultant penalty saved it shows how by not playing advantage or a wait and see how that can seriously affect a game.
So yes it can be helpful at times to be quick with the whistle yet a wait and see can be invaluable.
 
What you did was technically correct (agree with @alexgr whistle first is much better here). It also meant you didn't have to caution anyone if the ball didn't go in. However wait and see would have been much better. Of course if you do wait and see and order a retake then technically you must caution the offender for not respecting the required distance. I used the word technically as cautioning or not is discussed in another recent thread and I wont go there again.

Of course prevention is the best solution. I think you could have done a bit more in that regards. I referee a lot of Futsal and in Futsal minimum required distance for free kicks is 5 meters and a lot of free kicks are taken from less than 10 meters from goal (closest is 6 meters). So even one meter encroaching of the wall is a lot more significant than it is in Football. You get a lot of practice in wall management and the experience and learning are easily transferable.

What I learnt about wall encroachment is that they often happen on two specific moments. Often the wall starts moving forward after the whistle is blown or as soon as the kicker starts his/her run up. So my instruction to defenders is "You can move forward once the ball is kicked, not on the whistle and not on the run up" emphasising on the "not's". In my experience I get far, far less wall encroachment having emphasised on the latter two.
 
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@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 small area the voice was equally easy and I prefer to avoid too much whistling. Myself, I wish I had just waited two seconds or so and could have given the goal, it was a wonderful piece of improvisation and deserved a reward.
 
Hi
Key principle of the law is that offenders should not benefit from an offence. Getting a goal chalked off benefited the offending team.
 
Goldfish said:
Hi
Key principle of the law is that offenders should not benefit from an offence. Getting a goal chalked off benefited the offending team.
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Correct and it's clear @Ganajin is not too happy about it either. But allowing a goal which was scored after you stopped play is even a worse alternative.
 
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