Dicky Herts
Member
Evening all. First senior pre season friendly today with new law changes, step5 vs step7. All went well but this particular law change is causing severe confusion, challenge and misunderstanding from players:
Injuries
An injured outfield player who causes play to be stopped due to an actual or suspected injury or who receives assessment/treatment on the field of play must then leave and remain off the field for one minute (running clock) following the restart to allow the medical staff the necessary time to evaluate whether the player should continue playing, as well as to reduce disruption to the tempo of the match. This provision does not apply to the situations outlined in Law 5 that do not require an injured player to leave the field of play.
So two scenarios today. Big scramble in goal area, keeper collects just as defender goes down holds leg and screams in agony (no foul). It’s an easy one, stop play, check defender ok and drop ball to GK. Defender was ok, no treatment requested, he has to go off though for one minute because he caused play to be stopped. Lots of questions.
Little later, left back tussles with winger, attacker wins out, LB goes down holding face claiming he’d been elbowed (he hadn’t) because it appeared to be a face / head injury, I stop play as the attacker is about to cross, miraculously the defender is ok about 3 seconds later, doesn’t need physio, so say ok drop ball to orange and yellow 3 needs to go off for 1 minute because we stopped the game. Loads of questions - Why? Physio didn’t come on? Is it a blood injury? So gave brief explanation and restarted with drop ball and he was off for a minute.
I like this law change because players will learn that there’s a consequence to faking injury in order to claim fouls or stop play but it’s going to take some time for them to get used to it. I just hope other refs understand it and apply it properly.
Injuries
An injured outfield player who causes play to be stopped due to an actual or suspected injury or who receives assessment/treatment on the field of play must then leave and remain off the field for one minute (running clock) following the restart to allow the medical staff the necessary time to evaluate whether the player should continue playing, as well as to reduce disruption to the tempo of the match. This provision does not apply to the situations outlined in Law 5 that do not require an injured player to leave the field of play.
So two scenarios today. Big scramble in goal area, keeper collects just as defender goes down holds leg and screams in agony (no foul). It’s an easy one, stop play, check defender ok and drop ball to GK. Defender was ok, no treatment requested, he has to go off though for one minute because he caused play to be stopped. Lots of questions.
Little later, left back tussles with winger, attacker wins out, LB goes down holding face claiming he’d been elbowed (he hadn’t) because it appeared to be a face / head injury, I stop play as the attacker is about to cross, miraculously the defender is ok about 3 seconds later, doesn’t need physio, so say ok drop ball to orange and yellow 3 needs to go off for 1 minute because we stopped the game. Loads of questions - Why? Physio didn’t come on? Is it a blood injury? So gave brief explanation and restarted with drop ball and he was off for a minute.
I like this law change because players will learn that there’s a consequence to faking injury in order to claim fouls or stop play but it’s going to take some time for them to get used to it. I just hope other refs understand it and apply it properly.
