why do I bother.......

[haywain]

88 minutes gone, yellows losing 6-2

Yellow player bounces the ball hard and away after being flagged for offside.

Stop play and isolate the player concerned, who has been no trouble the whole game

Red player saying 'don't book him, ref'

Mandatory caution, mandatory caution, mandatory caution playing in my head

Remind him that throwing the ball away with a couple of minutes to play when you're 6-2 down is a pretty silly way to get a caution.

But decide not to caution cos I'm feeling generous and there's not an assessor in sight.

Spoke with his manager after the game and he, obviously, appreciated it

....and now I hate myself ...... albeit just a tiny bit

 

[SM]

Meh, sometimes common sense is the correct course of action.

Like you said, it meant nothing, he had been good up until that point and it was a dead game entering the final 2 minutes. What harm has been done? Law 18 applied.

 

[haywain]

Yeah, but, you know me, monkey, booking and fine may have prevented him from ever doing it again (maybe not)

... and then he scores a hat-trick in the game that he should have been suspended for a few cautions further down the line (perhaps)

....and I'm now 'last week's referee'

 

[SM]

Let's take a broader view.

If you were the only ref to do this (apply common sense in the above circumstances) then yes your individual actions today could have a catastrophic effect in an undefined future match, where a whole bunch of other random events occur and conspire to highlight your action as significant in some way

That is assuming you are the only ref that has done this or will do this in your league and there is something significant that occurs at some point in the leagues future involving the player you spared today.

More likely; some of your refereeing colleagues also apply this sort of common sense during the course of the season (or worse!!!!) and a whole poop storm of intertwined potential events and consequences triggered by referee actions (or inactions) are swirling within your league, chaos theory at its best, and it is far too complex to follow or break down. But strangely it all balances itself out over the course of a season for all teams.

Does that help put it in perspective?

 

[Brian Hamilton]

haywain, I would view this as good management of a player. He has delayed the restart to the detriment of his own team. In the context of this game, it sounds like the mandatory caution became less mandatory