A&H

Goalkeeper Punching the Ball Away

Dan1882

New Member
Had a friendly over the weekend and an incident that really got thinking.

Red corner comes in at a good height for a header. Blue keeper coming through a fair few bodies and punches the ball away. No harm done.

Second half same thing happens, punches the ball but he catches one of the attackers after clearing the ball away. I blow up as the attacker stays down holding his head and restart with a dropped ball.

I put this down as just a coming together. But it got me thinking that this could have been avoided had I pulled up the keeper for piadm the first time around.
 
The Referee Store
Firstly you can't penalise for PIDAM if there is contact.

Its an incident of 'you have to be there'. Even if you have a video of the incident, it could create some debate. Have a read through some of the discussions on the penalty given in WC2018 France V Australia when the 'defender got the ball' first.

The best advice I can give is that your main considerations are the definition of careless, reckless and excessive force. Then there are also other considerations like, was punching the ball before or after contact etc.

Here is another list of considerations released by FIFA 2015

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It happens quite a lot, 99% of the time the keeper gets the benefit of the doubt plus it’s very hard to spot within a crowded box who made contact with the ball first.

At the end of the day the keeper is allowed to punch the ball so you can’t really use the playing in a dangerous manner if he happens to collide with someone & I’ll tell you how a keeper may see it, my old keeper up until last season had the mentality that the only time in a game he can clear an opponent out & get away with it is from corners, if you challenged him in the air as he came for a corner 9 times out of 10 you were hitting the deck hard.

Like one said unless your 100% sure the attacker got the ball first then there isn’t much you can do it’s part of the game, you attack a ball near where a punch is thrown then you run the risk.
 
Can I throw in, if am reading it correctly, for me, a keepers punch of the ball that goes on to connect with the attacker is exact same as a defenders slide, where they get the ball first but then proceed to wipe out the man?
And, as we know, playing the ball first does not mean no foul is committed..
 
Can I throw in, if am reading it correctly, for me, a keepers punch of the ball that goes on to connect with the attacker is exact same as a defenders slide, where they get the ball first but then proceed to wipe out the man?
And, as we know, playing the ball first does not mean no foul is committed..
Yes that's true to an extent Ciley and I'm sure you would have the same consideration for the action that happens after the slide/punch. What you judge afterwards is whether that was part of the movement and the tackler had the chance to avoid contact? Say in Ciley's example of a sliding tackle, did the defender have the chance to tuck away a trailing leg that catches the attacker or it was an action intended to catch the man, tha ball or anything just to stop the attack.
 
The only allowance for gk is they are allowed to handle ball in the 18, As far as I know there is no allowance for them whilst using their hands to follow on and clean out a strikers head? I would indeed class that the same as a sliding challenge where they played ball first but then went on to clatter into the opponents legs
 
Yes that's true to an extent Ciley and I'm sure you would have the same consideration for the action that happens after the slide/punch. What you judge afterwards is whether that was part of the movement and the tackler had the chance to avoid contact? Say in Ciley's example of a sliding tackle, did the defender have the chance to tuck away a trailing leg that catches the attacker or it was an action intended to catch the man, tha ball or anything just to stop the attack.
Had this in a 6 a side tournament I did over the weekend.
Sent off an U12.
It was the cup final (there was a cup and consolation cup). The two teams had met in the group stages where again I had that fixture too. In that fixture there was a lot of aggressive challenges (lets say they were red), spoke to a player to calm down before he got subbed. Before the cup final, the team that committed the fouls saw it was them again they were playing (opponents are blue) and actually open said in front of me "can't wait, its those *****s again!"
With seconds on the watch before penalties, a blue defender slides, effectively unopposed as he was sliding towards no one, but blocking a long range shot, and clears the ball up field. Red continues running and "jumps over" the player. He could have stopped before reaching him, or clearly jump over, but instead he drops his left foot right on to the Blue mid drift area, catching him on the groin.
I kept an eye on it as the ball sailed up the field to a lone striker. I blew my whistle as the striker was never getting the ball and issued a red card immediately to the player. Parents kicked off (obviously), but manager calmly asked me to explain it as he took his eye off it as ball went up field. Explained and he said fair enough, I will punish him for that.
A lot of people have the chance to avoid collision, but some choose not to.
 
Had this in a 6 a side tournament I did over the weekend.
Sent off an U12.
It was the cup final (there was a cup and consolation cup). The two teams had met in the group stages where again I had that fixture too. In that fixture there was a lot of aggressive challenges (lets say they were red), spoke to a player to calm down before he got subbed. Before the cup final, the team that committed the fouls saw it was them again they were playing (opponents are blue) and actually open said in front of me "can't wait, its those *****s again!"
With seconds on the watch before penalties, a blue defender slides, effectively unopposed as he was sliding towards no one, but blocking a long range shot, and clears the ball up field. Red continues running and "jumps over" the player. He could have stopped before reaching him, or clearly jump over, but instead he drops his left foot right on to the Blue mid drift area, catching him on the groin.
I kept an eye on it as the ball sailed up the field to a lone striker. I blew my whistle as the striker was never getting the ball and issued a red card immediately to the player. Parents kicked off (obviously), but manager calmly asked me to explain it as he took his eye off it as ball went up field. Explained and he said fair enough, I will punish him for that.
A lot of people have the chance to avoid collision, but some choose not to.
NIce job of watching for that extra moment after the ball is gone - quite a bit can happen that deserves our attention.
 
The problem with this is that it might be fair. or it might be a foul against the keeper.
https://www.refchat.co.uk/threads/what-are-you-giving.11823/
Similar in a way...

Keeper's seem to get some latitude due to the unique nature of their position, but we're still looking at relevant risk, force used, that sort of thing.

There seems to be a perception that a keeper can always jump for the ball even if somebody is in the way. Well, that's not true. Maybe a bit more leeway, but there's going to be a point where we have to say 'no, you didn't actually have the right to jump for that ball'

The fact that the keeper is punching the ball means somebody might cop a fist to the head...in the same way that players kicking the ball means somebody's going to cop a kick to the shin. That doesn't mean it's a foul.
Usually, as long as the keeper got a solid hit on the ball first, it's not a foul. Punching is part of their play, in the way that usually catching a player after a kick isn't a foul. Now, if there seems to have been an overly exaggerated follow-through and it appears deliberate you deal with that, but I've never seen that actually happen. Almost always it's minimal force used and it's as much a matter of the attacker coming in late as it is anything else.

if the keeper missed the ball and gets the attacker, that's a foul.
 
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