A player re-enters the field of play without the referees permission and interferes with play inside the penalty area. The referee obviously stops play immediately, but does he award a penalty here? Law 3 mentions a direct free kick from the place of interference but there is no mention of a penalty being given if the interference was inside the penalty area. You can't give a direct free kick inside the area so I'm assuming it would be a penalty although it does not say this in the laws? Can anyone with more experience please clarify? Thanks
A player re-enters the field of play without the referees permission and interferes with play inside the box.
- Thread starter newref
- Start date
socal lurker
RefChat Addict
Why do you need the Q&A at all? Law 14 is pretty clear:
“A penalty kick is awarded if a player commits a direct free kick offence inside their penalty area or off the field as part of play as outlined in Laws 12 and 13.”
“A penalty kick is awarded if a player commits a direct free kick offence inside their penalty area or off the field as part of play as outlined in Laws 12 and 13.”
socal lurker
RefChat Addict
You can certainly get away with that, but I don’t think that is what the Laws anticipate. The Laws say not to stop immediately if there is no interference or advantage would apply. (This does create an odd anomaly: if we aren’t supposed to stop immediately if there is not interference, why is there still a restart for when there is no interference? Perhaps just for if the team with the player improperly returned scores, but that plYer did not interfere?)
I always interpreted this as you stop for no interference if the ball hasn't gone out of play for a while and you still have a player on the FoP that n cannot legally be involved in play - resolve the issue if the game hasn't given you chance to.
For situations where he could gain a tactical advantage.for example;
If there's a throw-in, and the player enters in-between the thrower and the destination as it gets cleared, then although he's not interfered with play directly, he is now in a good defensive position if the throwing team win the ball back and try to attack, as he's stepped in halfway. In this case, he may not even interfere at all, but rather than wait and see and then have to keep track of him for the rest of the play, it is easier to stop play there and penalise him for entering the F.O.P.
But also like @JH says, better to stop and caution the guy because otherwise you'll have the mess of watching play and keeping track of where he is so you can penalise the eventual interference and that would be a massive headache.
Peter Grove
RefChat Addict
That's correct. Even if it wasn't covered elsewhere, you've already answered your own question.