The Ref Stop

Unsporting from Drop Ball

B

boblardo

Active Member
Level 5 Referee
Local derby in the top division of the local sunday league so always likely to be a competitive affair.

Away side leading 2-1 with around 8 minutes to go, two players go up for a ball and a clash of heads occurs. I stop play and get the player treated and get everyone to restart via drop ball. The home side indicate they will play it back to the keeper so away side all stand back to allow the drop ball to be uncontested. I drop the ball which is then played through to a home team striker who takes 3/4 touches and heads towards the away side penalty area. Away side defender fouls the striker and it suddenly erupts.

It eventually calms down, so I caution the away defender for the tackle, who makes no complaint, and restart with a free kick. Sportingly the home side kick it back to the keeper and we play on.

I raise it as a few players suggested I could have stopped play although other than suggesting the drop ball didn't complete not sure what I could have done different but this could have ended a lot worse with the striker having his leg broken so any proactive tips would be appreciated
 
The Ref Stop
I agree that the recent law change does make you essentially powerless here, so it's a tough one. I don't think you can justify getting involved once the ball has been dropped, so you're forced to just penalise what you see.

One thing I'm a little unsure about - the striker who the ball was played through to. Was he actually attacking the away goal, or was he just dribbling around and showing off, with the intention of playing it back after that? The decision of the home team to kick it back to the keeper after that seems very strange to me?
 
GraemeS said:
One thing I'm a little unsure about - the striker who the ball was played through to. Was he actually attacking the away goal, or was he just dribbling around and showing off, with the intention of playing it back after that? The decision of the home team to kick it back to the keeper after that seems very strange to me?
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The striker took the ball and started toward the away goal, it was clear he either ignored the intention for the ball to go back to the keeper or wasn't aware although the former is more likely as most players had stopped. This incensed the away team and led to the cautionable foul
 
boblardo said:
The striker took the ball and started toward the away goal, it was clear he either ignored the intention for the ball to go back to the keeper or wasn't aware although the former is more likely as most players had stopped. This incensed the away team and led to the cautionable foul
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I really think you handled it as well as you could then. There's maybe a case to stop play using the verbal distraction law - if a player said "we'll kick it to the keeper" to try and trick the opponents into stopping when he had no intention of doing so - but that's incredibly tenuous, and you've have to book the player who said it rather than the one who disobeyed the instruction.
 
USB is an open ended list. You said in your thread title that it was unsporting, if you are certain it was unsporting then you have a case for stopping play and cautioning. A very hard sell and I don't think there is precedent for it in any top leagues. If you don't think it's a caution then what you did was pretty much the only option left without having to make up something non-genuine.
 
one said:
USB is an open ended list. You said in your thread title that it was unsporting, if you are certain it was unsporting then you have a case for stopping play and cautioning. A very hard sell and I don't think there is precedent for it in any top leagues. If you don't think it's a caution then what you did was pretty much the only option left without having to make up something non-genuine.
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Could it fall under unsporting behaviour for ‘verbally distracts an opponent during play or at a restart’ if the team said they would kick it back?
 
QuaverRef said:
Could it fall under unsporting behaviour for ‘verbally distracts an opponent during play or at a restart’ if the team said they would kick it back?
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It's a stretch. Somehow I don't think that category was meant for this situation given the word 'distract' was used and 'trick' or similar was not included. The point of my post was that it doesn't have to fall under any of the categories listed. You can make your own.

But if you must really want one from the list "shows a lack of respect for the game" fits better for me.
 
If they told you the were doing it and didn’t you could possibly think about deceiving the referee?
 
I should add: when I do dropball I just ask if they’re contesting and get on with it.
I try not to engage in conversation about it whatsoever.
 
Abeverley said:
On the contrary; I believe it’s one thing to deceive an opponent and another to deceive the referee
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I don't believe 'deceive the referee' is in the book for this purpose. Not at all.

Deceive the referee is to impact a referee's decision, not lie about what you're going to do with the ball.
 
There's a line in the LOTG that a lot of referees ignore:

"the referee CANNOT decide who may contest a dropped ball or its outcome"

It's not our duty to worry about the outcome of a dropped ball.

Play on.
 
Perhaps refering to the definition of deceiving the referee in the LOTG glossary will solve the problem of deciding if this can considered "deceiving the referee"
 
one said:
Perhaps refering to the definition of deceiving the referee in the LOTG glossary will solve the problem of deciding if this can considered "deceiving the referee"
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"Act to mislead/trick the referee into giving an incorrect decision/disciplinary
sanction which benefits the deceiver and/or their team"
Solved. It can't.
 
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one said:
It's a stretch. Somehow I don't think that category was meant for this situation given the word 'distract' was used and 'trick' or similar was not included. The point of my post was that it doesn't have to fall under any of the categories listed. You can make your own.

But if you must really want one from the list "shows a lack of respect for the game" fits better for me.
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I agree it's a stretch - and quite a big one at that. There's also the problem mentioned earlier by @GraemeS.
GraemeS said:
you've have to book the player who said it rather than the one who disobeyed the instruction.
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There's no indication that the player who said they would play it back, didn't mean it. It was the striker, who was presumably some way away at the time and almost certainly wasn't the one who uttered the potential 'deception' who has committed the (allegedly) unsporting behaviour.

So a USB caution for verbally distracting an opponent just doesn't work, for me. Whichever player you cautioned for this reason, you'd be cautioning them for something a different player did.
 
possibility of being sharp as soon as striker tries to play on and stop game, and retake the drop ball as "you cant be sure it hit the ground" ?

it might solve a lot of the potential issues, never mind a goal being scored but also the not so sporting player being split in two?!
 
Ciley Myrus said:
possibility of being sharp as soon as striker tries to play on and stop game, and retake the drop ball as "you cant be sure it hit the ground" ?

it might solve a lot of the potential issues, never mind a goal being scored but also the not so sporting player being split in two?!
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If you're really, really sharp (and that would probably mean having anticipated these events before they happened) and really, really wanted to find a way to stop play you could do this, I suppose.

The alternative, along the same lines of 'inventing' a solution by saying something happened, but which is probably closer to being true (and which has been proposed in the many previous discussions we've had on this subject) is to say that you've just realised the ball wasn't dropped in the correct location.

This one, although still a stretch for me, is actually a more tenable legal fiction than saying the ball didn't hit the ground. Saying the ball didn't hit the ground on the exact blade of grass that it should have done, is probably actually true in the majority of cases, it's just that is the kind of trivial or dubious technicality that we routinely overlook.
 
This is one of those everybody knows is unsporting. Everyone also accepts "the referee can't do anything about it". Laws of the game provide you some avenue to legally stop play by cautioning someone for USB. Or you can go ahead and invent a reason to stop play.
Unfortunately for the referee, the water is already under the bridge, no matter what you choose (allow goal, caution for USB or stop play for an invented reason), there is going to be unwanted consequences to deal with. Personally my choice is cautioning for USB but only if I am sure they are doing it by design.

My favourite choice of stopping play for an invented reason is to check if the ball is defective. You can use it in all situations.
 
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