A&H

Question guys...

HoofItYouDonkey

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Level 6 Referee
Today...ball played up to the red centre forward. The blue centre half comes in with a very hard tackle, clearly plays the ball but in the contact the centre forward gets a nasty gash on his leg. Totally accidental. The red team screaming for me to sanction, how can I if it was a fair, if albeit very hard challenge.
 
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Just to the right of the shin pad, which were very feeble affairs. Why footballers wear crap shin pads is beyond me.
 
I went to this game back along and may help you answer your question (fast forward to 3:15). Mike Dean initially pulled out the yellow but when seeing the gash on Ramirez’s leg, switched to red.

 
Thanks.
Interesting stuff. So a perfectly 'fair' tackle that causes accidental injury can be sanctioned with a red card.
 
If said tackle is excessive or endangers the safety of the opponent then yes it can be a red
 
Today...ball played up to the red centre forward. The blue centre half comes in with a very hard tackle, clearly plays the ball but in the contact the centre forward gets a nasty gash on his leg. Totally accidental. The red team screaming for me to sanction, how can I if it was a fair, if albeit very hard challenge.
Getting the ball has no real bearing on whether a foul has been committed. As far as I'm concerned, you have to take that out of the equation and just judge the challenge on its merits. Was the tackle careless, reckless, did it use excessive force or did it endanger the safety of an opponent? Or was it none of these things? Once you decide that, your should have your answer as to whether a sanction is required.

It's very difficult to say without seeing it but if the player was left with a serious gash then I would suspect there's a decent chance it was at least bordering on reckless.
 
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Thanks for all the advice. In fairness, I was not aware of the extent of the injury until half time.
The injury should not come into your thinking as to whether you ought to ahev done something differently. It can be used to confirm what you think about a challenge but remember a player can be, sometimes seriously, injured in a fair tackle. You have to judge the offenders action, not the outcome.
 
The injury should not come into your thinking as to whether you ought to ahev done something differently. It can be used to confirm what you think about a challenge but remember a player can be, sometimes seriously, injured in a fair tackle. You have to judge the offenders action, not the outcome.
The challenge was a fair challenge, neither team disputed that. It was just a very firm tackle, ball first, studs not raised, that resulted in an injury to the centre forward on the follow through of the tackle. No malice involved.
 
When looking at a challenge, possibility of playing the ball definitely comes into play, but force, intensity, point of contact all must be considered too.

Take the Cooper (Leeds) tackle yesterday. Got the ball, but point of contact was studs to the leg (above the ankle) with a non-bent leg.

Some of the things that can help you determine intensity are:
- Speed of the tackle
- Distance travelled by the tackler
- Locked leg (higher) vs bent leg (lower)
- Lunging through the air (higher) vs dragging a leg on the ground (often lower)

With a gash on the leg, it suggests to me that there was a point of contact that you missed in the tackle that possibly should have elevated this from what you felt was a fair tackle to careless or (more likely) reckless.
 
Getting the ball has no real bearing on whether a foul has been committed
Peter... we know that's what it say's in the book, but try telling Anthony Taylor that (one of our very best) and whichever inferior MO there was pushing buttons in Stockley Park today. The book and the real world bear very little comparison

Honestly, the average player is a better judge of a foul tackle than any Referee recounting the whole careless/reckless/dangerous spiel
 
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To somewhat pull this back on-topic, everyone assesses foul play in a complex manner
Referees don't have some divine insight just because they can use the words careless/reckless/dangerous as per the book. The chosen word is applied retrospectively by us, once the challenge has been assessed
The actual assessment of foul play is much more complex than the three words. It's primarily down to severity (risk of injury)... at least it should be, but winning the ball is a massive factor regardless of what's in the book. We're also bound to account for any resultant injury (because the injury represents evidence), the location of the challenge on the FOP, temperature of the game and the huge amount of subconscious bias caused by pressure applied on the Ref and the natural tendency to balance decisions between the two teams. But winning the ball is extremely important in our judgement, as is the location on the FOP (as proven Burn v Newc)
We merely retrospectively use the terminology in the book to sound good
 
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I'm in the "extent of the injury has nowt to do with the nature of the challenge" camp on this one. I'm still open to the idea of both trains of thought though.
I recall Martin Atkinson a couple of seasons ago during a Spurs match about to produce a yellow for a reckless challenge by (Son) but who upgraded it to red based purely on the visual effect of seeing the other player's misshapen leg injury.

For example, if you observed a careless/reckless challenge right on the touchline, the effect of which caused a player to go headlong into a nearby railing or advertising board and in doing so fracture their wrist or split their head open - would you be going red instead?
 
With a gash on the leg, it suggests to me that there was a point of contact that you missed in the tackle that possibly should have elevated this from what you felt was a fair tackle to careless or (more likely) reckless.

But that's the whole point. You can't make a match changing decision based on supposition or on something the "evidence" suggests.

If you hear a "crack" behind you and turn around to see two players stood facing each other, one holding his bleeding nose/eye/lip - you still gonna dish out a red for something you haven't seen? :)
 
Thanks.
Interesting stuff. So a perfectly 'fair' tackle that causes accidental injury can be sanctioned with a red card.
No offence intended here but TBH I find this statement and your OP a bit loaded. It sounds as though you are looking for affirmation rather than an answer. You have a good question though :).

Neither intent nor outcome should determine the sanction but they are both considerations. Unless I was there to see it I can't give you a definitive answer. I do question though, does a carful tackles usually lead to a gash in the side of the foot? The onus is on the tackler to be careful in the tackle.

So the tackle in the video you responded to, that tackle was by no means a 'fair' tackle and the gash in the leg, while may not have been intended, was not accidental. It was a result of having no regards for the safety of an opponent while leading with studs.
 
But that's the whole point. You can't make a match changing decision based on supposition or on something the "evidence" suggests.

If you hear a "crack" behind you and turn around to see two players stood facing each other, one holding his bleeding nose/eye/lip - you still gonna dish out a red for something you haven't seen? :)
I never said that you should make match changing decisions based on supposition.

I simply suggested that "it suggests to me that there was a point of contact that you missed in the tackle that possibly should have elevated this from what you felt was a fair tackle to careless or (more likely) reckless."

As in, the OP may have missed this point of contact when originally viewing it, so it's something to pay closer attention to in the future to ensure that the sanction is appropriate... in the future.
 
I never said that you should make match changing decisions based on supposition.

I simply suggested that "it suggests to me that there was a point of contact that you missed in the tackle that possibly should have elevated this from what you felt was a fair tackle to careless or (more likely) reckless."

As in, the OP may have missed this point of contact when originally viewing it, so it's something to pay closer attention to in the future to ensure that the sanction is appropriate... in the future.

Oh alright then!! :rolleyes: :D
 
I'm in the "extent of the injury has nowt to do with the nature of the challenge" camp on this one. I'm still open to the idea of both trains of thought though.
I recall Martin Atkinson a couple of seasons ago during a Spurs match about to produce a yellow for a reckless challenge by (Son) but who upgraded it to red based purely on the visual effect of seeing the other player's misshapen leg injury.

For example, if you observed a careless/reckless challenge right on the touchline, the effect of which caused a player to go headlong into a nearby railing or advertising board and in doing so fracture their wrist or split their head open - would you be going red instead?
I remember that, but that was a foul, albeit one that I would only class as reckless atbthe very worst.
 
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