The Ref Stop

France - Spain

I'm a big advocate of Assistant Referees telling Referees they've made a very obvious mistake, even when the AR is a good distance away
Above a certain level, this has potential to improve the standard of officiating. The benefit outweighs the risk in my experience
I'm not an advocate of AR's sh1tting themselves to get involved and I'm not an advocate of the Ref sh1tting himself in the pre-match.
I extend more responsibility to my AR's in pre-match than any referee I've ever met, even when the AR's are unknown to me and relatively inexperienced. I'm a risk taker and it works for me
 
The Ref Stop
We have a 25 minute half time planned for the final
Where is that allowed in the LOTG? The game is exponentially changing over time. No idea where we'll be 10 or 20 years from now
 
Big Cat said:
We have a 25 minute half time planned for the final
Where is that allowed in the LOTG? The game is exponentially changing over time. No idea where we'll be 10 or 20 years from now
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Wouldn't that be a risk to the players fitness ? Wouldn't they need another warm up, before they go back on ?
 
Big Cat said:
I'm a big advocate of Assistant Referees telling Referees they've made a very obvious mistake, even when the AR is a good distance away
Above a certain level, this has potential to improve the standard of officiating. The benefit outweighs the risk in my experience
I'm not an advocate of AR's sh1tting themselves to get involved and I'm not an advocate of the Ref sh1tting himself in the pre-match.
I extend more responsibility to my AR's in pre-match than any referee I've ever met, even when the AR's are unknown to me and relatively inexperienced. I'm a risk taker and it works for me
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I understand where you are coming from, but for me it’s a dilemma because in my world decision making more or less comes from credibility of position (certainly helps to identify & sell). In the case last night, the outcome was correct and the Referee would have known his AR very well being part of the team and trusted him - so all in all, despite my reservations, overall i am ok with it. However, on a Saturday afternoon at L3-6 without comms, I think that there will be an issue on many occasions (though I accept that you provide your AR’s with more leverage). It may be slightly better with L2 & above because of Comms, though I would say there would still be the majority of Referees who would not want an AR to intervene at this type of incident (perhaps more so if a penalty had been incorrectly awarded). Also, ARs at L2-L6 are usually (but not always) different each week and not park of a fixed team - so not the same amount of trust I suggest as last night.
 
Big Cat said:
We have a 25 minute half time planned for the final
Where is that allowed in the LOTG? The game is exponentially changing over time. No idea where we'll be 10 or 20 years from now
Click to expand...
Is this confirmed? I've heard 10 minutes and 12 minutes from different (news) sources.
 
one said:
Is this confirmed? I've heard 10 minutes and 12 minutes from different (news) sources.
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What I’ve heard is that is the length of the show itself. They need to set up and break down the stage. What I saw said they planned to do it in 20 minutes. I wonder if teams might have asked to have warm up time with the halfxtime getting extended by 5 minutes hand possibly a couple more if they can’t do it as fast as hoped)?

I hate it. And I really hate the precedent. If the WC doesn’t have to follow the Laws, why does anyone else. The idea that the Laws have to be followed and only approved changes can be made seems to be mere words now.
 
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DavidObs said:
I understand where you are coming from, but for me it’s a dilemma because in my world decision making more or less comes from credibility of position (certainly helps to identify & sell). In the case last night, the outcome was correct and the Referee would have known his AR very well being part of the team and trusted him - so all in all, despite my reservations, overall i am ok with it. However, on a Saturday afternoon at L3-6 without comms, I think that there will be an issue on many occasions (though I accept that you provide your AR’s with more leverage). It may be slightly better with L2 & above because of Comms, though I would say there would still be the majority of Referees who would not want an AR to intervene at this type of incident (perhaps more so if a penalty had been incorrectly awarded). Also, ARs at L2-L6 are usually (but not always) different each week and not park of a fixed team - so not the same amount of trust I suggest as last night.
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In general, I think there's too much made of this 'credibility' lark
Angle trumps proximity 10-fold so it's not unlikely to see a blatant mistake from some distance away
I'm not daft either. What I'm indicating is not without risk as there's the odd lunatic AR out there. My mindset is that I'm only interested in the right outcome as frequently as possible and I don't care how we get there. In my experience, reversing a wrong decision is not met with hostility regardless of 'credibility'. Quite the opposite actually, I've had players genuinely surprised resulting in good club and observer marks, especially as I set it up in the pre-match. Anyway, I'm referring to infrequent incidents as obvs I rarely make mistakes in the first place!
It will no doubt bite me on my fat arse some day, who knows?
 
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This is why comms are such a valuable tool for those skilled at using them (which I'd love to become). In an ideal world you'd have it look a bit smoother than it did for Barton last night, but there doesn't need to be a trade off between credibility and correct outcome
 
Why wasn't this given as handball?

Christina Unkel said: "...the contact is on the sleeve of Yamal, it would not be considered part of the arm."

But how does that square with Law 12

Screenshot 2026-07-15 at 16.33.16.png
 
ARF said:
Because it's not deliberate handling, nor is the arm in a position where it is making him unnaturally bigger.
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Ok thanks. Nothing do with the sleeve then.

It's another tricky one as I see it. It's clearly arm to ball, not ball to arm. So kinda deliberate.
 
Wilson80 said:
Ok thanks. Nothing do with the sleeve then.

It's another tricky one as I see it. It's clearly arm to ball, not ball to arm. So kinda deliberate.
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Well it is also pretty close to armpit level, but I'd go for it more being not intentional handling, the arm was in an acceptable position.

Didn't help that Ms Unkel mentioned the t-shirt line, I had mates messaging me asking why players didn't just wear longer sleeves 🤦‍♂️
 
RustyRef said:
Well it is also pretty close to armpit level, but I'd go for it more being not intentional handling, the arm was in an acceptable position.

Didn't help that Ms Unkel mentioned the t-shirt line, I had mates messaging me asking why players didn't just wear longer sleeves 🤦‍♂️
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Ok thanks! Yeh think she's been great overall but that wasn't her finest moment!
 
Big Cat said:
In general, I think there's too much made of this 'credibility' lark
Angle trumps proximity 10-fold so it's not unlikely to see a blatant mistake from some distance away
I'm not daft either. What I'm indicating is not without risk as there's the odd lunatic AR out there. My mindset is that I'm only interested in the right outcome as frequently as possible and I don't care how we get there. In my experience, reversing a wrong decision is not met with hostility regardless of 'credibility'. Quite the opposite actually, I've had players genuinely surprised resulting in good club and observer marks, especially as I set it up in the pre-match. Anyway, I'm referring to infrequent incidents as obvs I rarely make mistakes in the first place!
It will no doubt bite me on my fat arse some day, who knows?
Click to expand...
You are right, reversing a wrong decision is often met with credit, so long as it only happens on rare occasions in a match - once & no more than twice, because things can quickly turn. As you have said, angle is also important and one reason why the Referee made a mistake yesterday was because he was too close/almost on top of play. However, there are also many AR’s out there that I would not call lunatics by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly flag happy (usually at Step 5/6 & below), even when they are provided with clear pre-match instructions, when/when not to intervene. I have got the feeling since I’ve been on this forum that you rarely make mistakes. 😆
 
RefereeX said:
This is why comms are such a valuable tool for those skilled at using them (which I'd love to become). In an ideal world you'd have it look a bit smoother than it did for Barton last night, but there doesn't need to be a trade off between credibility and correct outcome
Click to expand...
When Comms first came out I would say many L2 Referees & their Assistants struggled, but by Christmas many had adapted the motto of less is more and getting the hang of not having an open mic!! Having more reliable equipment since then has also helped which I believe was largely in place during last season.
 
Big Cat said:
In general, I think there's too much made of this 'credibility' lark
Angle trumps proximity 10-fold so it's not unlikely to see a blatant mistake from some distance away
I'm not daft either. What I'm indicating is not without risk as there's the odd lunatic AR out there. My mindset is that I'm only interested in the right outcome as frequently as possible and I don't care how we get there. In my experience, reversing a wrong decision is not met with hostility regardless of 'credibility'. Quite the opposite actually, I've had players genuinely surprised resulting in good club and observer marks, especially as I set it up in the pre-match. Anyway, I'm referring to infrequent incidents as obvs I rarely make mistakes in the first place!
It will no doubt bite me on my fat arse some day, who knows?
Click to expand...
Agree to an extent, but there's no way on earth an AR can be making a visual signal with his flag in this situation, it was on the opposite side of the penalty to him and the referee was right next to it. There's limited credibility and then a total lack of credibility, and this would be very much the latter.

But with comms no one knows who has got involved, and certainly not at this level as everyone blamed VAR even though they had nothing to do with it 😂
 
DavidObs said:
You are right, reversing a wrong decision is often met with credit, so long as it only happens on rare occasions in a match - once & no more than twice, because things can quickly turn. As you have said, angle is also important and one reason why the Referee made a mistake yesterday was because he was too close/almost on top of play. However, there are also many AR’s out there that I would not call lunatics by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly flag happy (usually at Step 5/6 & below), even when they are provided with clear pre-match instructions, when/when not to intervene. I have got the feeling since I’ve been on this forum that you rarely make mistakes. 😆
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Yes, I'm a much better AR than I once was due to the 'less is more'
Indeed, that's exactly what I indicate to my AR's. I don't want them busy. I also don't want them to get excessively safe by favouring the defence. This irritates the life out of everyone. 55/45 bias is more than enough, yet that slight bias is very important. Just got to nail those numbers

So less is more, but the best ARs will have the minerals to indicate when a referee is the only one in the ground to have seen something
TBH, if I'm on good form, I'm already running to the AR with the best view when I sense I'm in that boat, regardless of a signal or not. It's a phony conversation which lasts a nano second after which I can say 'he/she put me right', 'sorry, I've lost the plot'
I don't really buy the idea the AR can't signal from far way. That feels like a tried and tested idea that hasn't worked over the years. Like I say, right outcome and I couldn't give a monkeys about how we get there, as long as it's quick and correct and it fits with my pre-match instruction
 
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