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What if multiple players take of their shirt?

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Dutch Referee Blog

Dutch Referee Blog

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What if multiple players take off their shirt to celebrate a goal? The Laws of the Game do not mention that you can only book the goal-scorer. This picture is take after Ajax u19 scored a last-minute winning goal. What would you decide?

ajax-taking-off-shirt-yellow.jpg


Case study is on: http://www.dutchreferee.com/multiple-players-take-off-shirt-celebrate-goal/
 
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Caution each of them.
Now, why do people advocate a card party here, but in other cases where multiple players have done the same wrong thing - dissent, encroachment, melee - people advocate to just book the first or worst offender? (just another example of how sick this game is. we need to just start holding players accountable for their actions)

I mean, only booking the first is consistent with other refereeing approaches.
 
Technically, all of them could be cautioned. BUT - consider why this was first introduced: in my view it was a commercially led change - the photos most likely to appear in the press will be of goalscorers, and often just after they have scored and/or are celebrating that goal. Commercial sponsors - if a player raised their shirt over their head or took it off completely - would not be getting their brand in to those photos. So, in #TheSpiritOfTheGame just book the goal scorer, and not his team mates - after all, those other players could argue they were celebrating their team mate taking his shirt off, and wanted to join in with him, and not celebrating the actual goal...
 
xPositor said:
Technically, all of them could be cautioned. BUT - consider why this was first introduced: in my view it was a commercially led change - the photos most likely to appear in the press will be of goalscorers, and often just after they have scored and/or are celebrating that goal. Commercial sponsors - if a player raised their shirt over their head or took it off completely - would not be getting their brand in to those photos. So, in #TheSpiritOfTheGame just book the goal scorer, and not his team mates - after all, those other players could argue they were celebrating their team mate taking his shirt off, and wanted to join in with him, and not celebrating the actual goal...
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So does that mean a team who has no sponsor on their shirt, shouldn't have any players cautioned...?
 
Hi
My take on this is that the Laws makes reference to player in the singular so the goal scorer should be cautioned not multiple players. Climbing on a perimeter fence is also a caution. Could we see a referee throwing out cards to multiple players at a goal for celebration offences. That is poor refereeing. Pick the offender as expected in law for the caution.
 
xPositor said:
Technically, all of them could be cautioned. BUT - consider why this was first introduced: in my view it was a commercially led change - the photos most likely to appear in the press will be of goalscorers, and often just after they have scored and/or are celebrating that goal. Commercial sponsors - if a player raised their shirt over their head or took it off completely - would not be getting their brand in to those photos. So, in #TheSpiritOfTheGame just book the goal scorer, and not his team mates - after all, those other players could argue they were celebrating their team mate taking his shirt off, and wanted to join in with him, and not celebrating the actual goal...
Click to expand...

FIFA came up with a different reason each week as to why it was introduced. The reasoning is irrelevant - it's a mandatory caution and it's about the only mandatory caution that's consistently applied.
Goldfish said:
Hi
My take on this is that the Laws makes reference to player in the singular so the goal scorer should be cautioned not multiple players. Climbing on a perimeter fence is also a caution. Could we see a referee throwing out cards to multiple players at a goal for celebration offences. That is poor refereeing. Pick the offender as expected in law for the caution.
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And there's the problem with refereeing - applying the LOTG is considered 'poor refereeing'. The problem with this game is we don't put any responsibility onto the players. But we see it all the time - this game has a nasty culture of 'you can do whatever you like, just make sure a few of your mates are doing it as well'.

I disagree with your first sentence. The LOTG refers to removing a shirt to celebrate a goal. It deliberately doesn't specify that it's only applicable to the goalscorer. And I think you're reading too much into 'referencing a player in the singular'. That's done many places throughout the laws - by that logic you could only send one player off after a violent brawl!!
 
Hi CapnBB
Throwing yellow cards around like confetti is poor refereeing. Seen any of the top referees do multiple card tricks?. Even on the mobbing instruction UEFA and other associations do not say caution every player in the group. It says to pick one. Same as jumping into a crowd behind the goal. Ever seen multiple cards there. Nope. I once saw a referee caution four players in the wall, all for encroachment. That went down well with the assessor!! For me the player pulling off the jersey as the goal scorer is the player to sanction not all the others.
 
Goldfish said:
Hi CapnBB
Throwing yellow cards around like confetti is poor refereeing. Seen any of the top referees do multiple card tricks?. Even on the mobbing instruction UEFA and other associations do not say caution every player in the group. It says to pick one. Same as jumping into a crowd behind the goal. Ever seen multiple cards there. Nope. I once saw a referee caution four players in the wall, all for encroachment. That went down well with the assessor!! For me the player pulling off the jersey as the goal scorer is the player to sanction not all the others.
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That's my point - why have this absurd notion that it's perfectly fine to break the laws as long as others are doing it? We'll never change the culture of the game if it's more okay for 7 players to get in the referee's face than for 1. It's because of concepts like this that this game has so many serious problems - it just perpetuates the idea that it's the referee who is responsible for everything that happens and players have no responsibility whatsoever for their actions.

You have several players who have committed a mandatory caution. The reality is, the law requires each one of them to be cautioned. Each one of those players knows it's a mandatory caution.

Why is cautioning multiple cards 'poor refereeing'? I think it's the opposite. Letting multiple players get away with an offence because of some laughable notion of 'err....I...umm....erhm.....I don't think I'm supposed to do that' as a result of the various lies we've all been told - and perpetuate - about refereeing is what's poor refereeing. Not feeling like we can make the right decision and instead having to make the weak decision in case - heaven forbid - we actually upset somebody who did the wrong thing - is poor refereeing. Ignoring mandatory cautions is poor refereeing. It's just that so much of the way we're told to referee is poor refereeing that we've been conned into thinking it's good refereeing.
 
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Hi
The point I make is that the accepted norm it refs do not to caution in this manner. By all means caution away yet I can assure if this is that the *system* will not impressed with it. Now okay the system might be wrong yet going on a crusade of multiple carding is going to undermine the referees cred and standing. A ref that wants to change the system on the FOP better be prepared for a long hard road.
The ref in the incident cautioned the goal scorer which is the mandatory part. I don't believe that he cautioned his two team mates. What would the observer say had he dished out three / four cards? He would not be impressed.
Let me put it this way. Say three of the four are already on a caution not the goal scorer would the referee walk the three team mates if they jumped up on the perimeter fence as they do with the scorer or removed a jersey. What would be the reaction to that. I watched a Fulham game a few season ago where a player was dismissed after scoring for removing his shirt. No complaint and 100% correct to do so. Could you really see multiple players walking.
All I am putting forward is that the referee is expected to deal with it in a certain way which is to caution the goal scorer as mandatory. To go outside that might be okay in law yet the ref will not be doing himself nor the game any favours and he will undermine his credibility and standing. If he is happy for that to happen then work away.
 
I don't think we're really in any disagreement on much here. This is definitely a soapbox rant of 'how things are vs how they should be'. But I'll throw something else at you:
Shirt removal is perhaps the only mandatory caution that's actually applied correctly and consistently so. In that sense, it may well be that the multiple cards would be better accepted here than anywhere else.
Given it's a mandatory caution, as an assessor I'd be marking down a referee who only cautioned one player here. The laws don't provide the choice. I acknowledge that randomly picking one player to caution out of a breaking wall, a melee or mob dissent is weirdly and absurdly considered to be the best practice and I'd consider that as an assessor. But discretion is lost on the shirt removal - and it's precisely because it's the only law that is applied so consistently that it actually works. It's the only law in the book where we're not all 'Last Week's Ref'. It is treated different to all others from the refereeing institution, it is treated differently from the players and spectators, so I do think it's a bit of 'apples and oranges' here.
As for your statement that only the goalscorer is required to be cautioned - so, if Attacker A put through a square ball to Attacker B past the keeper and Attacker b slotted it in, and Attacker A ripped his shirt over his head - are you claiming that the laws don't require that attacker to be cautioned?
In response to your question of 'what if they were all on a caution' - well, the game is never going to progress past the horrendous state of referee abuse and other cultural problems while we still ask the question of 'what would be the reaction?'. In any other sport, that question simply wouldn't exist - and nor should it here.
 
straight red for the goal scorer for starting the fascist movement ... yellow for the rest, including the guy not removing his shirt - his yellow is for being a spoilsport and not joining in with their proper celebration, soon as he takes his shirt off to fit in ... bam! 2nd yellow, red!
 
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