Hi all, I had a game yesterday afternoon in Step 7 on the line, and it's fair to say that it was one of the most difficult games I've ever had to officiate. For context, the 2 teams (Home: White, Away: Blue) are both quite good, in the top half of the table (both challenged for the title last season).
As the officials, we were warned before the game that there was the potential for things to kick off (why, I don't know!). The first half went perfectly, no issues at all. The only incident came a few minutes before half time, when a white defender is chasing the ball inside his own penalty area, blue forward gets there first, white defender comes in carelessly, catches blue player without getting anywhere near the ball. Easy pen, ref missed it so I flagged as it was definitely credible for me to do so, as I had an unobstructed view of the incident, which occurred on the nearest side of the area to me. (Probably should have cautioned for SPA as well, didn't, but no major issues came about from that). EDIT: See later posts from @OldNavyRef
The major issues, however, started after half time. Something just shifted the atmosphere a bit, and both sets of players were constantly at each other, and us as officials. Ultimately, we ended up with 2 dissent cautions, 1 (blatant) delaying the restart, and a couple of C1s. Then out of nowhere a challenge went flying in on the far side of me, none of us had a good view as players were getting in the way so nothing came of it. When the ball went out of play a few seconds later something must have been said because all hell broke loose between the 2 sets of benches and players getting involved. A couple of cautions came after that, and I thought, personally, that one of the coaches was lucky not to be cautioned (at least) as I heard from the other side of the pitch that he shouted (at the U18 ref) you are f***ing disgrace. From that point onwards the game just descended into chaos.
About 10 minutes later there was a second mass con, sparked by a perfectly fair tackle. This one resulted in a red card for VC (white 5 blatantly kicked out at someone with excessive force), no further cards though. Literally a minute later (97th minute by this point) ref blows up and we're greeted by several players and coaches on halfway. Home chairman is dismissed. Then everything started to cool off and we go to do what needs to be done.
That's the full run down (apologies for the whole report!), which leads to me to my question. If there are 2 mass cons in a game like this, and you as the officials feel like you are losing control, should we start to think about suspending/abandoning the game? It was potentially nearing the point where it wouldn't have been safe to continue if there'd been more than a few minutes left, for us or the players.
Side note: White team also fielded a player we later found may be ineligible (suspended). Is it the refs responsibility to report that or the teams?
TIA!
As the officials, we were warned before the game that there was the potential for things to kick off (why, I don't know!). The first half went perfectly, no issues at all. The only incident came a few minutes before half time, when a white defender is chasing the ball inside his own penalty area, blue forward gets there first, white defender comes in carelessly, catches blue player without getting anywhere near the ball. Easy pen, ref missed it so I flagged as it was definitely credible for me to do so, as I had an unobstructed view of the incident, which occurred on the nearest side of the area to me. (Probably should have cautioned for SPA as well, didn't, but no major issues came about from that). EDIT: See later posts from @OldNavyRef
The major issues, however, started after half time. Something just shifted the atmosphere a bit, and both sets of players were constantly at each other, and us as officials. Ultimately, we ended up with 2 dissent cautions, 1 (blatant) delaying the restart, and a couple of C1s. Then out of nowhere a challenge went flying in on the far side of me, none of us had a good view as players were getting in the way so nothing came of it. When the ball went out of play a few seconds later something must have been said because all hell broke loose between the 2 sets of benches and players getting involved. A couple of cautions came after that, and I thought, personally, that one of the coaches was lucky not to be cautioned (at least) as I heard from the other side of the pitch that he shouted (at the U18 ref) you are f***ing disgrace. From that point onwards the game just descended into chaos.
About 10 minutes later there was a second mass con, sparked by a perfectly fair tackle. This one resulted in a red card for VC (white 5 blatantly kicked out at someone with excessive force), no further cards though. Literally a minute later (97th minute by this point) ref blows up and we're greeted by several players and coaches on halfway. Home chairman is dismissed. Then everything started to cool off and we go to do what needs to be done.
That's the full run down (apologies for the whole report!), which leads to me to my question. If there are 2 mass cons in a game like this, and you as the officials feel like you are losing control, should we start to think about suspending/abandoning the game? It was potentially nearing the point where it wouldn't have been safe to continue if there'd been more than a few minutes left, for us or the players.
Side note: White team also fielded a player we later found may be ineligible (suspended). Is it the refs responsibility to report that or the teams?
TIA!
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had a moment then! It applies to cautions as well as dismissals, if a challenge/attempt for the ball is made.