A&H

would any of you have cautioned?

richard ramjane

richard ramjane

RefChat Addict
last sunday i had an U15 game, and at one point while the ball was in play i overheard one of the away team say he couldnt breathe very well, and glanced over while i was following play moving away from where he was. he was pretty close to the touchline and he left the FOP. at the next stoppage i trotted over to the manager to say that he should really have asked permission to leave the FOP, but i could see he was struggling and using an inhaler ( i have a daughter that suffers with asthma and i know how urgently you can need an inhaler sometimes) common sense made me not caution as players safety of course is paramount, and he remained off the pitch for a few more minutes before asking to come back on
but i'm just curious to see how many of you guys would have got the yellow card out?
 
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Let's be realistic - this is definitely a situation where common sense takes precedent over LOTG. Issuing a caution in these circumstances achieves nothing and makes you look an a#*e.
 
very good question and its got me thinking hard about whether the medical nature of what happened is justification for not issuing
would an assessor just see that situation as pure black and white? would i be marked down without him potentially seeing the situation in the same way ?
like i say my daughter suffers and i know when she has an attack that inhaler has to be taken immediately or its gets way out of control

i'll add that the player was so close to the touchline and the manager was assisting to find the inhaler that they didnt have time to alert me
think i'd be happy to take the lower mark on the chin
 
Absolutely no way I'd be cautioning in this situation, whether youth or OA.

A player who is struggling to breathe is not going to be thinking about informing the ref before he goes for an inhaler, nor should he have to.

Not having that an assessor would mark down for that either, would be interested to hear from our resident assessors?? @Brian Hamilton @lincs22
 
I certainly wouldn't be cautioning here and to consider it would seriously jeopardise your credibility and match control, even if technically you can be argued to be correct.

If you're concerned about potential issues of an assessor being present, a good bit of kidology can come into play.

You've heard the player and are aware of the situation, so a simple quick hand gesture to acknowledge the player or a verbal "if you need to player" (or something similarly non descript would mitigate the risk although I would like to think that any assessor would show some empathy for the situation.
 
There should the no caution for this.

As an assessor, we would look at the referee establishing what reasons there was for a player leaving without permission. Based on that answer, we would expect the referee to act accordingly.
 
There are omly a few reasons I won't caution for players leaving FOP w/out permission, that's one of them.
Anything like - Chest pain, breathing difficulty, vomitting, emergency toilet trip (Dodgy food) or severe dizzyness/feeling faint I'd not caution for leaving FOP, I'd just polietely remind them that they should in future or they could clock a caution for it
 
Aled said:
There are omly a few reasons I won't caution for players leaving FOP w/out permission, that's one of them.
Anything like - Chest pain, breathing difficulty, vomitting, emergency toilet trip (Dodgy food) or severe dizzyness/feeling faint I'd not caution for leaving FOP, I'd just polietely remind them that they should in future or they could clock a caution for it
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I think you should turn your judgement 180 degrees, so that there are reasons to caution rather than find reasons not to caution. More pro-active game management.
 
Maybe you could have stopped play as an alternative, especially for players at that age. I know he walked/crawled off, but had he been further from the touchline i'd be thinking safety first. Anyway, you did absolutely the right thing and to be honest, I'm surprised you even needed to ask.:cool:
 
Never a caution in a million years.

In fact if a referee did caution I would find some way of marking them down. In this situation, the referee must retrospectively give permission for the player leaving the field for medical reasons. It's something we have to do, for example with a junior player who becomes upset and storms off the field OR indeed in this situation. We are not robots nor stupid.
 
Brian Hamilton said:
Never a caution in a million years.

In fact if a referee did caution I would find some way of marking them down. In this situation, the referee must retrospectively give permission for the player leaving the field for medical reasons. It's something we have to do, for example with a junior player who becomes upset and storms off the field OR indeed in this situation. We are not robots nor stupid.
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Whilst I agree that we have to show empathy in medical emergencies...the idea that an assessor would somehow artificially manipulate a negative mark for something which is technically correct to the letter of the law, is a bit disconcerting.

A player who is 8 and storms of the pitch will probably get a pass.....a player who is 15 and does the same probably will not.....
 
Former assessor here - common sense can override the Law here....but this is the sort of area where the law will just be strongly bent. Permission doesn't necessarily mean the player has to ask - if you've thought to yourself 'I'm ok with him leaving' then isn't that permission. The general idea is that there's an implied standing permission for a player to leave in an emergency - such as, needing an asthma puffer. I wouldn't even have bothered with the 'hey, these are the laws' speech, but I guess that comes down to how it's delivered.

Age wouldn't even be relevant here. It would be like a player injured near the line who drags himself off the pitch - you're not going to caution that.

When you see him off, just give him a shout to give you a shout when he wants to come on and wait for permission.

A caution here would be saying that you expected the player to risk serious harm or death. An assessor saying you should caution here is saying the same thing.
 
Padfoot said:
Whilst I agree that we have to show empathy in medical emergencies...the idea that an assessor would somehow artificially manipulate a negative mark for something which is technically correct to the letter of the law, is a bit disconcerting.

A player who is 8 and storms of the pitch will probably get a pass.....a player who is 15 and does the same probably will not.....
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Well you see... oh never mind. You wouldn't get it, even if I explained it to the n th degree with diagrams. Either you grasp the concept or you don't and you, my dearest Padfoot, just don't seem to get it at all.
 
Brian Hamilton said:
Well you see... oh never mind. You wouldn't get it, even if I explained it to the n th degree with diagrams. Either you grasp the concept or you don't and you, my dearest Padfoot, just don't seem to get it at all.
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Oh no...I do get it.

Although the ref would technically be correct if they cautioned, it would be ridiculous in that particular scenario.....but you wouldn't be able to mark them down in application of law because they are correct.
So you would find another way of marking them down to reflect your displeasure.....which would be manipulating the marks to suit your own end.....and justify it to yourself by saying they deserved it for cautioning in such a situation.....

You might get lucky and it affects their match control.....

Would I be happy to see a ref caution in that scenario? Of course not......would I go out of my way to mark them down because of it? Only if it was warranted under the criteria......I would certainly be offering words of advice.....
 
Err, no. It wouldn't be 'manipulating the marks to suit your own end' at all. A single incident can fall under several sections. No different to saying he thought you were harsh to caution for a particular tackle. May be technically permissible but still the wrong decision.
 
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