A&H

Half time subs warming up

WilliamD

WilliamD

Well-Known Member
Level 4 Referee
Interesting incident for me this weekend. As I’m sure is the case for most of us in the northern hem this time of year the pitches the last few weeks have been touch and go. This Saturday I was lucky enough to have very nice pitch at a fantastic venue. Nice pitch but it was wet of course and we were cutting it up as you do playing football. I was walking off at HT towards the locker room and the subs for yellow started kicking the ball around in what was their half but what was going to be the blue teams goal to defend in the second half. Blue keeper came running over to me and said “they can’t warm up in my goal mouth”. I looked at him a bit surprised and said “not sure that actually has anything to do with me or the laws but I’m sure if you ask them nicely they will kick the ball around on the other side of the pitch” - it was a non issue as he did ask them and they did switch sides but it got me thinking about my role. Was I right? Or is there something in Law that I should of used to manage this?
 
The Referee Store
i think the keeper is trying to stir up trouble more than anything. chances are the players would have been doing no more than pinging cross field balls to each other and taking a few pot shots at goal, hardly anything that would have any significant impact to the state of the pitch
 
Some leagues and associations (or councils) do have rules/guidelines concerning where and for how long players can warm up. I've seen 'official' notices in some changing rooms explaining this. I guess it is an attempt to keep pitches playable.
 
There's no specific provision in the Laws saying where subs can or should warm up at half time. The only thing I can think of that might even come close is the prohibition on making unauthorised marks on the field of play (although the law only mentions players not being allowed to do this, I don't think it's intended that substitutes should be be given a free pass).

However if they're not making unauthorised marks, I don't think there's anything else that applies.

The way you handled it sounds perfectly fine to me.
 
Ciley Myrus said:
I think on what you are saying you used common sense and an amicible solution was reached
Click to expand...
Agree with CM, it is written in law 18 and you used it perfectly. I have asked player in the past, both pre-match and at half time to not use the goal mouth to warm up (keeper being an exception) when the ground is only just playable. Never had any issues with players accepting my request.
 
At senior levels they have something called pitch warm up protocol, and it is clearly laid out who can warm up when and where. In the absence of that there just needs to be common sense, and sounds like you managed this well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top