A&H

Reentering play

GraemeS

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Level 5 Referee
So I had a fairly contentious incident on Saturday that I wouldn't mind some input on.

Home team is defending an attack and manage to get the ball out, but the clearance is horribly sliced. It just about goes out for a throw, but then spins dramatically backwards and over a fence into the adjacent field behind the goal. Give that I could still see the ball in the next field, I knew there was a gate through into that field and the other match ball had popped within the first 5 minutes of the match, I have no problem with one of the attacking team players running round to get the ball rather than forcing them to try and find another spare. Ball is thrown back over to an attacking player by the corner flag and the "fetcher" starts to jog back.

My question essentially, is what am I obliged to do here with respect to the player jogging back? Am I obliged to wave him back on? Given it's his team that has the ball, can I allow them to restart without him if they want to? And if I do, are there any limits on when he can then come back on?
 
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I think having a good awareness is required, and also living up to expectation level. If a player goes to get this ball, I reckon most folk would expect the game wont restart until he has returned. If we are being arsey about it, he does nit have to go to get the ball and is doing the game a turn by going to get it.
What I would not allow is say, the team mate of guy who is away to get ball, to simply touch the ball short for the guy to run on the pitch and start playing with it. I dont think thats in the spirit of the game. By all means they can take a short corner but, given the time delay gone here, I would think a whistle to restart play would be apt and lets everyone know the game is about to restart.
If the team are 1 up with five mins to go, I would certainly be aware and try to be proactive whilst bearing in mind, we cant actually demand that he goes to get the ball in the first place
As for playing without him at attacking teams request, based on spirit of game and percieved expectation level, I would probably play safe and keep things simple and just wait. Why complicate a simple situation.
 
I wouldn't allow play to restart until all players were back on the field.
It's easier to just view this situation like any other throw-in where you'd allow any opposition player to get back on after retrieving the ball before the other team took their throw/corner etc.

There's no obligation on your part regarding the LOTG that I can see, since he hasn't left the field without your permission. (?)

To be honest Graeme, if this guy's team wanted to commence proceedings before he'd got back onto the field, I'd consider it just ignorant. But that's just me I suppose.
 
He's gone off the field to get the ball - as long as he's heading straight back on he doesn't need your permission. You see this all the time, player runs off to fetch the ball that's on the next pitch and kicks it to the thrower.
Also, no particular reason to hold play up - allow the team to hold play up if they want, but if they see the advantage in taking it quickly, that's their call.
But, it depends. I'm thinking more in terms of a TI there.
As for a CK, it's a very static restart anyway so you wouldn't cause problems by holding play up for the player to return. I'd suggest you don't have to - but perhaps it's worth considering where this other player is coming from. If he's likely to come back on over the goal line...well, that could be problematic.
Ok, so what happened?
 
He's gone off the field to get the ball - as long as he's heading straight back on he doesn't need your permission. You see this all the time, player runs off to fetch the ball that's on the next pitch and kicks it to the thrower.
Also, no particular reason to hold play up - allow the team to hold play up if they want, but if they see the advantage in taking it quickly, that's their call.
But, it depends. I'm thinking more in terms of a TI there.
As for a CK, it's a very static restart anyway so you wouldn't cause problems by holding play up for the player to return. I'd suggest you don't have to - but perhaps it's worth considering where this other player is coming from. If he's likely to come back on over the goal line...well, that could be problematic.
Ok, so what happened?
So, essentially, I lost track of where the player coming back had got to - throw in was right by the LB's corner flag, I positioned myself around that corner of the PA, crowd of players in and around the PA and near side of the 6 yard box and the gate the jogging player had to come back through was behind the RB's side of the PA, roughly lined up with the 6-yard box on that side and about 10 yards back. So hopefully you can imagine that the gate was almost directly on the other side of the crowd to me.

Seeing the ball was in the throwers hands, I whistled to tell him to restart. Ball comes in, is flicked on at the near side of the PA and bundled home from within the 6 yard box. All perfectly legit as far as I could see, so I awarded the goal.

One of the defending players then moans that the returning player was still off the pitch when the game restarted and that I shouldn't have allowed the goal as a result. This argument then gets taken up by his teammates, a number of who suddenly claim they weren't ready, or that their position was compromised because they thought I was waiting for him to come back, or that he committed an offence by not waiting for me to wave him on.

Having seen the above replies, I'm confident that 1. I'm not obliged to wait for him to get back, 2. I didn't have to wave him on when he did get back and 3. I can restart when I want (and helped my case by giving a clear whistle). With those 3 points in mind, I am feeling better about allowing the goal - which turned out to be the only goal in a fairly high-tension 0-1 cup match, which also ended with 2 reds to the aggrieved home team.

I was briefly concerned that it might have been the returning player that bundled it home, which might have led a touch of legitimacy to the claims, but I'm fairly confident that wasn't the case and that he was still off the pitch as the goal went in. Had he been the goalscorer, would that then justify a case for disallowing the goal, or is it still technically valid? (even if that's definitely not a good way to deliberately let it happen!)
 
So, essentially, I lost track of where the player coming back had got to - throw in was right by the LB's corner flag, I positioned myself around that corner of the PA, crowd of players in and around the PA and near side of the 6 yard box and the gate the jogging player had to come back through was behind the RB's side of the PA, roughly lined up with the 6-yard box on that side and about 10 yards back. So hopefully you can imagine that the gate was almost directly on the other side of the crowd to me.

Seeing the ball was in the throwers hands, I whistled to tell him to restart. Ball comes in, is flicked on at the near side of the PA and bundled home from within the 6 yard box. All perfectly legit as far as I could see, so I awarded the goal.

One of the defending players then moans that the returning player was still off the pitch when the game restarted and that I shouldn't have allowed the goal as a result. This argument then gets taken up by his teammates, a number of who suddenly claim they weren't ready, or that their position was compromised because they thought I was waiting for him to come back, or that he committed an offence by not waiting for me to wave him on.

Having seen the above replies, I'm confident that 1. I'm not obliged to wait for him to get back, 2. I didn't have to wave him on when he did get back and 3. I can restart when I want (and helped my case by giving a clear whistle). With those 3 points in mind, I am feeling better about allowing the goal - which turned out to be the only goal in a fairly high-tension 0-1 cup match, which also ended with 2 reds to the aggrieved home team.

I was briefly concerned that it might have been the returning player that bundled it home, which might have led a touch of legitimacy to the claims, but I'm fairly confident that wasn't the case and that he was still off the pitch as the goal went in. Had he been the goalscorer, would that then justify a case for disallowing the goal, or is it still technically valid? (even if that's definitely not a good way to deliberately let it happen!)
I don't see anything you did wrong there. However my question would be, having this experience now, if you get exactly the same situation, would you do exactly the same thing?
Legit question from a player and game management perspective.
 
I don't see anything you did wrong there. However my question would be, having this experience now, if you get exactly the same situation, would you do exactly the same thing?
Legit question from a player and game management perspective.
As I said, I lost track of the player and assumed he was back on the pitch. Definitely something I'll be keeping an eye on in future though.
 
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As others have said, the safest option is to wait for him to get back. The risk of starting without him is that he gets back to the touchline just as play is in that area, and runs on to intercept a pass that the opponent wouldn't have made had he been in that position. That strikes me as unnecessarily causing yourself problems and potential lack of match control.
 
Graeme do you wave the thrower back on? No he retrieved the ball the other team should have been ready when the ball was in the throwers hand, no obligation to wait. Different if a defender retrieving the ball as you may have match control issues there but for an attacking team taking a throw in a player down!
 
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