The Ref Stop

Wall or a fence?

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RustyRef said:
The offside check, which is done for every goal, would have been completed very quickly as he clearly wasn't offside.

They really didn't need any electronic measurement technology, it was that obvious. 1m is a little under half the height of a tall player, Guehi was pretty much touching the wall and was very clearly within 1m of it.

If we look at the VAR protocol, this is one of the listed situations as being in scope for VAR intervention ...

attacking team offence in the build-up to or scoring of the goal (handball, foul, offside etc.)

Was Guehi an attacking player? Yes. Was there an attacking team offence in the scoring of the goal? Yes, as being closer than 1m to the wall is an offence. Therefore there is absolutely no reason why VAR can't get involved in this situation. If it was a case where they would have needed a method of accurately measuring the distance then I'd suspect they would say it wasn't a clear and obvious error and stay out. But not even the most argumentative of people could argue that Guehi wasn't within 1m of the wall.
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Which wall? He was 1m away from the wall that the ball travelled closer to, the one in question had no impact on the path of the ball

Hypothetically a defending team could use 9 players to set up three 3 man walls across the the penalty area, covering enough surface area to ensure that any direct freekick directed towards the goal is an offence, should any attacking player be in 1m proximity when the kick is taken

Its just not in the spirit
 
The Ref Stop
JD1 said:
Which wall? He was 1m away from the wall that the ball travelled closer to, the one in question had no impact on the path of the ball

Hypothetically a defending team could use 9 players to set up three 3 man walls across the the penalty area, covering enough surface area to ensure that any direct freekick directed towards the goal is an offence, should any attacking player be in 1m proximity when the kick is taken

Its just not in the spirit
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This one, which he is clearly less than 1m from at the time the free kick is taken, he's almost certainly less than 0.5m from it. Image quality is rubbish as it dims the video when pausing, but still enough to see.

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Clearly the player was within 1m of the main wall defending the goal and the resulting decision was correct.

Changing the scenario slightly. What if the player had remained in their original position.

Would the 3 Chelsea players stood in a line but not formed up shoulder to shoulder constitute a wall?
 
Hilly1618 said:
Clearly the player was within 1m of the main wall defending the goal and the resulting decision was correct.

Changing the scenario slightly. What if the player had remained in their original position.

Would the 3 Chelsea players stood in a line but not formed up shoulder to shoulder constitute a wall?
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What criteria is used to decide what the 'main wall' is?
 
JD1 said:
What criteria is used to decide what the 'main wall' is?
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The laws. If a defensive wall has 3 or more players no attacking player can be within 1m of it. Even if a club decide to create 3 x 3 men defensive walls, unlikely as that it, attacking players wouldn't be allowed to be closer than 1m of each of them.
 
JD1 said:
What criteria is used to decide what the 'main wall' is?
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I’m referring to the group of 4 with a 5th player laid on the floor behind them. I think every referee would agree that’s a wall. But did the 3 other players away from this group constitute being a wall?
RustyRef said:
The laws. If a defensive wall has 3 or more players no attacking player can be within 1m of it. Even if a club decide to create 3 x 3 men defensive walls, unlikely as that it, attacking players wouldn't be allowed to be closer than 1m of each of them.
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but was is a wall?
 
Hilly1618 said:
Clearly the player was within 1m of the main wall defending the goal and the resulting decision was correct.

Changing the scenario slightly. What if the player had remained in their original position.

Would the 3 Chelsea players stood in a line but not formed up shoulder to shoulder constitute a wall?
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There's a clear gap between at least two of the players, even before Guehi dragged one away, so I wouldn't classify that as a wall.
 
OK but the wall in question to the left does not or can not influence the attempt on goal, in fact Guehi moves himself 1m away from the wall or defending players (to the right in pic below) that has more influence on stopping the ball moving towards the goal

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This consideration does matter because if the ball is passed sideways or backwards, we would play on because there has been no advantage gained, despite every criteria being met in the LOG (there is nothing that says it has to be a strike on goal), but by the letter it should always be an offence regardless because the LOTG stipulates that it is 'when the free kick is taken'

It's just moving the game away further and further away from the spirit of a game involving competing teams. This is not what the law was designed for.
 
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JD1 said:
OK but the wall in question to the right does not, or can not influence the attempt on goal, in fact Guehi moves himself 1m away from the wall (to the left) that has more influence on stopping the ball moving towards the goal

This consideration does matter because if the ball is passed sideways or backwards, we would play on because there has been no advantage gained, despite every criteria being met in the LOG (there is nothing that says it has to be a strike on goal), but by the letter it should always be an offence regardless because the LOTG stipulates that it is 'when the free kick is taken'

It's just moving the game away further and further away from the spirit of a game involving competing teams. This is not what the law was designed for.
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What are we looking at? The ball hadn't committed an offence as far as I am aware?

The law doesn't say that the player closer than 1m from the wall has to have gained an advantage, just being there is the offence.

Palace fan by chance?
 
RustyRef said:
What are we looking at? The ball hadn't committed an offence as far as I am aware?

The law doesn't say that the player closer than 1m from the wall has to have gained an advantage, just being there is the offence.

Palace fan by chance?
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Sorry my original post was a mess due to technical demons

Yes but advantage is inseparable from this scenario, hence my example about the ball being passed backwards or sideways, the ref wouldn't give a freekick in that instance despite the criteria being met within the LOTG
 
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bester said:
They'll more examples of this across European games, and Internationals where VAR hasn't intervened.
None of the EPL ones were marked as incorrect VAR non-interventions

I'm sure I've posted about it more than a few times on here

https://twitter.com/x/status/1957080294625866149
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Yeah reckon I've seen at least 3 now from last year in the prem alone if not more!

It's just one of those things that annoys me if you're never going to act on it until now 🤷‍♂️. Think I'd understand if they'd been told but from what I understand it wasn't one of the talking points.

On a separate note, can we please just keep Darren England away from Crystal Palace games? Don't think I've watched him have a good game in the middle when refereeing one of Palace's fixtures.
 
JD1 said:
Sorry my original post was a mess due to technical demons

Yes but advantage is inseparable from this scenario, hence my example about the ball being passed backwards or sideways, the ref wouldn't give a freekick in that instance despite the criteria being met within the LOTG
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I've no idea what you mean by "advantage being inseparable" ?
 
bester said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1957153454482202783

I wonder whether this was initially reviewed for the push, and then once at the monitor he decided there's a 1 metre infringement
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No, he wasn't there long enough for that, plus the commentators can hear the feed and if he'd been sent there for a push and disallowed it for something else they'd have been all over it.

That said, assuming the pushing / pulling continued after the kick was taken there's a strong argument to say that was a foul. It wasn't a little push or pull, it was a move that was more suitable for the rugby pitch, and would certainly be classed as sustained holding in PGMOL talk.
 
Teams will just start making 1, 2 or even 3 walls now. If they space their walls 1.8m from each other, no player can stand between them and they'll be within 1m of one of the walls, at least. Keeper may be slightly unsighted but can work on that. Have one wall in front of another, and one to the side.
 
ladbroke8745 said:
Teams will just start making 1, 2 or even 3 walls now. If they space their walls 1.8m from each other, no player can stand between them and they'll be within 1m of one of the walls, at least. Keeper may be slightly unsighted but can work on that. Have one wall in front of another, and one to the side.
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Will be interesting to see if this happens. The problem for defending teams if they do this is that for them to have 3 walls, they need minimum of 9 players. This will the free up every other attacker
 
ladbroke8745 said:
Teams will just start making 1, 2 or even 3 walls now. If they space their walls 1.8m from each other, no player can stand between them and they'll be within 1m of one of the walls, at least. Keeper may be slightly unsighted but can work on that. Have one wall in front of another, and one to the side.
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Not sure why teams would change their approach now given that this law has been in place for circa 6 years.
Also, not sure if would be a great strategy to make 3 walls, given to be a wall there must be at least 3 players, which means 3 walls would leave 1 defender marking up to 9 opposition players elsewhere in the area...
 
Dale Johnson has confirmed that he had previously been given incorrect information on this, and that an attacking player within 1m of the wall is reviewable by VAR.

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