Awarded a penalty nobody asked for

[mctones]

Bit of a bizarre one in my match tonight.

Attacker is just about to shoot in the box, as he draws his foot back defender clips the back of his heel, but attacker manages to get the shot away anyway, hits the bar and ball goes out. I award a penalty as in my view the clip on heel was careless and put off attacker in his shot.

But here is the bizarre thing, the attacker didn’t ask or call for a foul, nobody did, they were all head in hands after it had hit the bar.

It was a clear and obvious sound, I saw the heel being clipped.

The defending team are now livid, saying how can I award a foul when nobody was asking for it. The resultant penalty was scored and it turned out to be the deciding factor in the game.

Feel a bit sick in my stomach, what should I have done here?

 

[wazztie16]

Bit of a bizarre one in my match tonight.

Attacker is just about to shoot in the box, as he draws his foot back defender clips the back of his heel, but attacker manages to get the shot away anyway, hits the bar and ball goes out. I award a penalty as in my view the clip on heel was careless and put off attacker in his shot.

But here is the bizarre thing, the attacker didn’t ask or call for a foul, nobody did, they were all head in hands after it had hit the bar.

It was a clear and obvious sound, I saw the heel being clipped.

The defending team are now livid, saying how can I award a foul when nobody was asking for it. The resultant penalty was scored and it turned out to be the deciding factor in the game.

Feel a bit sick in my stomach, what should I have done here?

How long between the clip and you blowing the whistle? All I can say is maybe delay the whistle a second or 2, but then you have the issue of '2 bites of the cherry'. Tough one imo. Probably just make a decision and try to sell it. Say you thought the players' shot was heading wide or something from your angle. Or if you don't give it, say you believed it was normal contact. Tough one, imo.

 

[mctones]

How long between the clip and you blowing the whistle? All I can say is maybe delay the whistle a second or 2, but then you have the issue of '2 bites of the cherry'. Tough one imo. Probably just make a decision and try to sell it. Say you thought the players' shot was heading wide or something from your angle. Or if you don't give it, say you believed it was normal contact. Tough one, imo.

Time plays tricks on mind so difficult to say exactly, it was all so quick, essentially (1) clip heel (2) shot (3) hits bar (4) goes out of play (5) I then blow whistle and bring it back for the initial clip of heel.

I had started to draw whistle to mouth after (1) so by time got to (5) ready to blow. What I hadn’t factored in is nobody including the attacker asking for the foul at any point between 1-4

 

[RustyRef]

Rightly or wrongly, the expectation is if the shot has been got away there is no penalty. All you can really do is delay the whistle, if there is then no appeal alarm bells should be ringing as we all know that players appeal for everything.

 

[mctones]

Rightly or wrongly, the expectation is if the shot has been got away there is no penalty. All you can really do is delay the whistle, if there is then no appeal alarm bells should be ringing as we all know that players appeal for everything.

Think that explains why I feel a bit sick!

 

[one]

This might make you feel better. Some of you might recognise the referee. No one thought this was a penalty at the time (yes there was some appeals). but multiple replay an slowmo shows it was an excellent decision. Use the speed function in youtube to slow down the slowmo replays further at 1.18 and 1.25. Breisha's landing left foot is slightly clipped displacing it just enough for it to hit the ball which makes the shooting right foot miss the ball altogether.

 

[Trip]

This is slightly different because the striker did not get a shot off.

However, if you think the shot was affected by by the ankle clip then a penalty is the correct decision.

 

[Ref X]

Probably just make a decision and try to sell it.

Agreed with @wazztie16 here. Once you blow for it and point, you might have to puff your chest out a bit and really start narrating to get the call sold.

And sounds like you got the call right if you saw enough contact for a foul. Sometimes as referees we have to put ourselves out a bit on an island to get the call right. This can be scary but sometimes it's necessary.

On the other hand, if every single player is surprised you're calling the penalty and you're the only one confident in the call, it's important to replay this in your head now and think hard about it. I'd say it's often some players agree and some don't but it's pretty rare that everybody is surprised by a call. It's for sure possible you still got it right but there's also a possibility you didn't if you're truly surprising every player.

Feel a bit sick in my stomach, what should I have done here?

Don't be too hard on yourself! It doesn't sound like you made the wrong call but if you did, it's done and dusted now. You're already doing the most important thing after a CMI, which is posting it here to discuss and improve yourself. You're doing things right

 

[mctones]

thank you!

All else being equal, and replaying in my mind, externally to all parties I stuck by what I saw and heard and in the end the head coach of the losing team and I shook hands, he understood why I made the call even if he remained in disagreement over the outcome.

However, with greater thought on the detail of the incident I do think I made the wrong call now, the striker was clearly not put off enough that he was able to get a shot away.

Or to put it another way, had I not awarded a penalty and the striker did say I got clipped, it would have been easier to defend that he had sufficient advantage and he did not take.

Lessons learned (1) delay whistle as much as possible and (2) continue to ignore constant calls for fouls but take note when they don’t!

Really appreciate the support on here, more than I get locally!

 

[Mooseybaby]

Rightly or wrongly, the expectation is if the shot has been got away there is no penalty. All you can really do is delay the whistle, if there is then no appeal alarm bells should be ringing as we all know that players appeal for everything.

The downside of this "expectation" is that it affectively gives a defender a green light to wipeout an attacker with a cheap follow through knowing they highly likely to get away with it.

 

[socal lurker]

The downside of this "expectation" is that it affectively gives a defender a green light to wipeout an attacker with a cheap follow through knowing they highly likely to get away with it.

I think there is a floating scale, not an absolute expectation. A soft to medium penalty is clearly not expected if a shot was already take. But a bad foul is expected to be called (unless the ball already left the field).

 

[goiko]

I may be on my own here, but personally I want players to stop giving me their opinions on what I should or shouldn't be giving, and so I'm happy to blow for a foul that nobody has asked for. It happens vice versa all the time. Otherwise you only get accused of reacting to the shouts.

 

[RustyRef]

I may be on my own here, but personally I want players to stop giving me their opinions on what I should or shouldn't be giving, and so I'm happy to blow for a foul that nobody has asked for. It happens vice versa all the time. Otherwise you only get accused of reacting to the shouts.

The problem with that is from time to time our eyes play tricks on us and we think we have seen things that haven't happened. There will almost always be an appeal for a penalty claim, and the absence of one should always have alarm bells ringing.

 

[socal lurker]

The problem with that is from time to time our eyes play tricks on us and we think we have seen things that haven't happened. There will almost always be an appeal for a penalty claim, and the absence of one should always have alarm bells ringing.

Mostly agree. I won't hesitate to give 100% PK before anyone has appealed. But on harder calls, the players (on both teams) are often clues about what happened. (And we have to be aware of the behavior of the teams. Some teams appeal for everything even when there isn't a close call, and some teams don't appeal much at all--don't penalize the respectful team and favor the whiners!)

 

[RustyRef]

Mostly agree. I won't hesitate to give 100% PK before anyone has appealed. But on harder calls, the players (on both teams) are often clues about what happened. (And we have to be aware of the behavior of the teams. Some teams appeal for everything even when there isn't a close call, and some teams don't appeal much at all--don't penalize the respectful team and favor the whiners!)

Agree, although over here I can't recall seeing a team that rarely appeal. I've also given a lot of penalties before there was even a chance of an appeal, but they have all been absolutely nailed on ones that would be impossible to see incorrectly. I don't think I have ever seen a penalty situation where not a single attacking player has appealed it, if there is zero appeal there is a very, very high chance you have seen it wrong, certainly in adult football.

 

[goiko]

The problem with that is from time to time our eyes play tricks on us and we think we have seen things that haven't happened. There will almost always be an appeal for a penalty claim, and the absence of one should always have alarm bells ringing.

True, I can't deny that a non-appeal does sometimes makes me doubt myself and change my mind. But that does penalise a respectful team (a rarity, I know), and if the captain politely and quietly asks me a few seconds later "Did you not think that was a penalty?" then I'm annoyed with myself! (I'd like to think before a game some managers tell their players "Right, with this ref the more you keep appealing the less he'll give you", but I'm not deluded enough to think those are the exact words he'll use!)

 

[goiko]

Mostly agree. I won't hesitate to give 100% PK before anyone has appealed. But on harder calls, the players (on both teams) are often clues about what happened. (And we have to be aware of the behavior of the teams. Some teams appeal for everything even when there isn't a close call, and some teams don't appeal much at all--don't penalize the respectful team and favor the whiners!)

Indeed. I reckon at the start of each season the leagues should remind the clubs of Roy Keane's quote: "The more you give the referees hassle the more likely it is that any 50/50 decisions will go against you. I found that out far too late in my career"

 

[RustyRef]

Indeed. I reckon at the start of each season the leagues should remind the clubs of Roy Keane's quote: "The more you give the referees hassle the more likely it is that any 50/50 decisions will go against you. I found that out far too late in my career"

There's a huge difference between appealing for a penalty and giving the referee hassle. As I said, I cannot recall a single occasion where there haven't been any appeals on a potential penalty.