Behind the Whistles Podcast

Was listening to this podcast hosted by ex cat 1 referees from Scotland analysing scottish Prem game key refereeing decisions.

Anyway, a situation occurred in Hearts game I think where keeper had ball in hand after claiming a cross. Defender cuddles him to say well done and patted the ball with his hand. Ref didn’t see it, nothing given. The ex cat 1 guy suggested that this can never be a penalty but should have been an IDFK as per LOTG. I can’t find anything to this effect in the good book. Anyone shed any light on what he could be referring to as surely if you’re calling this it can only be a penalty?

Last season I’m pretty sure we had a high profile incident very similar to this and the SFA released guidance afterward some uproar stating that this should not be punished because of spirit of the game/what the game expects etc. this i agree with but is there any precedent in law to award an IDFK?

RichardRef said:

Was listening to this podcast hosted by ex cat 1 referees from Scotland analysing scottish Prem game key refereeing decisions.

Anyway, a situation occurred in Hearts game I think where keeper had ball in hand after claiming a cross. Defender cuddles him to say well done and patted the ball with his hand. Ref didn’t see it, nothing given. The ex cat 1 guy suggested that this can never be a penalty but should have been an IDFK as per LOTG. I can’t find anything to this effect in the good book. Anyone shed any light on what he could be referring to as surely if you’re calling this it can only be a penalty?

Last season I’m pretty sure we had a high profile incident very similar to this and the SFA released guidance afterward some uproar stating that this should not be punished because of spirit of the game/what the game expects etc. this i agree with but is there any precedent in law to award an IDFK?

Click to expand...

None whatsoever. Some of these ex cat1 whatevers dont half try and make life difficult for us.
Ultimately, there is scope in law to not punish. You can argue that the handling is not deliberate. And then you could argue that the body was not made unnaturally bigger or if it was you could argue it was a consequence or justifiable for the movement in that specific situation.
What can't be argued is an indirect free kick..

Hate the millisecond/frame by frame VAR analysis of stupid stuff like this.

Like when a sub behind the goal stops the ball that has been drilled as hard as possible, 15 feet wide and they touch the ball just before the ball has fully crossed the line.

If a player fist bumps the keeper after he's got the ball and VAR says it touched the ball and they want a penalty. Madness.

Like when Arsenal took the goalkick against Bayern and a player handled it. Elite ref didn't give it, cause they get scope to do what they want.

Guarantee some lower level ref used common sense and decided not to penalise a player over that and got slaughtered by an observer.

They are quite clearly just making things up now.

On their X replies they are trying to claim that there is an IDFK offence “any other offence not mentioned in the Laws”

They seem to be confusing this for the actual IDFK bullet point “ commits any other offence not mentioned, when play is stopped to caution/send off”.

It’s actually laughable that they are trying to put themselves out there as a definitive source on refereeing decisions and are hugely critical of current refs and then spout this utter nonsense.

The podcast really isn’t worth listening to. The host (who is not an ex ref) takes up 75% of the show time with his opinion on all the decisions/refereeing controversy, and comes across as someone who thinks he knows the Laws but really does not.

The remaining 25% we hear from the 2 ‘experts’ who were Cat 1 referees. However it’s well over 10 years since either of them took charge of a top flight match. Conroy had a more distinguished career than Roache. Conroy did referee in the SPL for 10 years including handling one old firm game (although his performance was poor in that game), Roache never handled an SPL game in his 4 years at Cat 1. Both Conroy and Roache lost their Cat 1 spots after consistent poor performance.

Both of them come across as bitter ex ref’s with agendas and axes to grind with the SFA in general and some individual referees. This year is the second year of behind the whistles and previous to that they had a podcast with a different name and host, however the rhetoric was very similar.

Is it the same bunch as “Get Involved Referee”? Was a SPFL pod who went through the previous week’s matches. That was entertaining enough to someone who hadn’t actually seen the matches, and sounded quite knowledgable... then just stopped.

Never found a ref podcast that was a half-decent listen. Either rambling and dull, irrelevant to my experiences on a Saturday, or just plain incorrect in Law

FirsFox40 said:

Is it the same bunch as “Get Involved Referee”? Was a SPFL pod who went through the previous week’s matches. That was entertaining enough to someone who hadn’t actually seen the matches, and sounded quite knowledgable... then just stopped.

Never found a ref podcast that was a half-decent listen. Either rambling and dull, irrelevant to my experiences on a Saturday, or just plain incorrect in Law

Click to expand...

Yeah I believe it’s the same guys.