The Ref Stop

Blocking GK's Fly Kick

Libano Ref

Libano Ref

New Member
Incident in my game last week...
Home team leading 2-1... Home Striker blocks & stops Away GK's quickly attempted fly kick in the 78th minute
I give the Away team an IDFK & book the Home striker.

Had a mentor (who's also an observer) there on the day tell me I should not have booked him, as it's not in the laws of the game.
"What's the code for the caution?" he asked (good question offcourse) - I could not think of anything but "Unspecified behaviour" as it obviously wasn't a restart.

Revising it through, he's (probably) right.. but does it make any sense? That a team can do that and get away with it?
A winning team can stop and infuriate a losing team's GK from playing a quick fly kick (i.e to his striker, who could be waiting on the halfway line etc.)

The expectation is for a card to be given.. but I'm baffled that the Laws of the game don't mention this. Can't a team continue to do this, taking turns so that none of them get booked? And then a GK reacts, and gets punished.

Keen to read your thoughts on this!
 
The Ref Stop
Was it stopping a promising attack? If not the your mentor is right.

in terms of expectations, expectations are set by us, if many of us book even though there is no 'in law' reason for it then the expectation is set for it. Similar to many have expectations for a free kick if a player shouts 'mine'.
 
USB is a broad category. The LOTG give examples of USB, not an exclusive list. (Back when the US published Advice to Referees, it included additional examples, one of which was messing with the GK releasing the ball.) IMO, there are two rationales that are possible. As above, SPA is plausible in some contexts. In other contexts, USB is appropriat—but I think it requires a true knucklehead play. YMMV.
 
one said:
Was it stopping a promising attack? If not the your mentor is right.
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Or it can be done in a reckless manner.
It's not a mandatory so you have to judge the action of the offender or of course outcome of SPA
 
Worth noting that it cannot be "delaying the restart" or "failing to respect the distance" - both of those apply to a dead ball restart, which this isn't.

Given you describe it as the GK trying to take a quick kick, I think you could probably make a case under SPA. In reality, that's probably stretching the definition unless you can clearly identify a counter-attacking striker the GK was targeting. And so if you're not willing to do this stretch, I think you're limited to just a IFK and a warning for the first one, then go straight to PI if it happens again.

As for your worry about the team taking turns to do it - I would take this as a situation where "Team PI" might be appropriate. If you include the captain in that initial warning, you can be clear that anyone else from his team doing this will qualify as persistent and then you can go straight to the booking for that.
 
It was one of the questions at the level 4 development day this year. The answer was that no yellow card should be given. Obviously if there's one striker against one defender then you'd be well within your rights to give a yellow for SPA, but in reality you will be looking at the goalkeeper at the time of the offence.

The obvious problem is that everyone expects a yellow and then by not giving one you will end up with the other team doing the same to the goalkeeper which is the misjudgement of this law imo
 
The "problem" here is that an ifk 'rewards' the attacker by limiting the keepers choices of distribution. So to redress the balance, it should be a yellow card offence - after all it's very similar/ same type of offence as delaying a restart.
 
N416405 said:
The "problem" here is that an ifk 'rewards' the attacker by limiting the keepers choices of distribution. So to redress the balance, it should be a yellow card offence - after all it's very similar/ same type of offence as delaying a restart.
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Given a keeper (as one I'm biased) will be punished by failing to release much as they would for failing to take a FK I'm keen to agree
 
We can't be inventing offences just because something "feels" yellow.

Find an offence it comes under, or accept that the first one just has to be a warning to set up for PI if they repeat.
 
Cart leading the horse though, isn't it? We could just as easily make "mine" illegal, or allow "I got the ball ref" as justifications for why a current foul should actually be legal, just because lots of people think that's what the law actually is, but that isn't the right way to approach these things.
 
GraemeS said:
Cart leading the horse though, isn't it? We could just as easily make "mine" illegal, or allow "I got the ball ref" as justifications for why a current foul should actually be legal, just because lots of people think that's what the law actually is, but that isn't the right way to approach these things.
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No but I think my above argument around restarts of play (i.e. I'm punished for not releasing the ball but they're not punished for stopping me like they are with a freekick where we can both be punished for delaying it) is a valid one.
 
It really depends on what the attacker does. If he dangles a leg and the keeper kicks into it that can be incredibly dangerous, so there's an easy caution for reckless there. If he just moves about in front of the keeper there's certainly nothing reckless and it would normally just be a free kick. At a real push could be SPA, more relevant at higher levels as not that many keepers at grass roots know where their kicks are going, whereas the likes of Ederson and Alisson can drop it on a postage stamp.
 
RustyRef said:
It really depends on what the attacker does. If he dangles a leg and the keeper kicks into it that can be incredibly dangerous, so there's an easy caution for reckless there. If he just moves about in front of the keeper there's certainly nothing reckless and it would normally just be a free kick. At a real push could be SPA, more relevant at higher levels as not that many keepers at grass roots know where their kicks are going, whereas the likes of Ederson and Alisson can drop it on a postage stamp.
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As a life-long member of the GK's union, I can attest to the dangling leg being dangerous - no hesitation in going reckless YC for that.

The only occasion I can remember doing SPA was late in the game with opposition keeper up for a corner and teammate blatantly trying to delay other GK release to buy him time to get back. No one argued with that
 
GraemeS said:
We can't be inventing offences just because something "feels" yellow.

Find an offence it comes under, or accept that the first one just has to be a warning to set up for PI if they repeat.
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Not "inventing" offences, but I do feel like the laws benefit the offender here. In my case, it was done towards the end of a game where tensions are rising and a team is chasing after an equaliser. Just surprising that the LOTG don't punish it.

It's an offence where there's no reasonable explanation to why the attacker's done it: he can't make a case of trying to get the ball, trying to intercept a pass etc. Yet, he gets away with it. 😅
 
Libano Ref said:
Not "inventing" offences, but I do feel like the laws benefit the offender here. In my case, it was done towards the end of a game where tensions are rising and a team is chasing after an equaliser. Just surprising that the LOTG don't punish it.

It's an offence where there's no reasonable explanation to why the attacker's done it: he can't make a case of trying to get the ball, trying to intercept a pass etc. Yet, he gets away with it. 😅
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If it's causing an issue and it happens again, you can just go Persistent on the second offence - even if you haven't actually stopped play for an IDFK on the first one. Keeper would much rather have ball in hand and just get on with it, so I'm only giving the IDFK if the ball has been released and I have no option. Best practice would probably say in that case you should give an advantage signal for the first one to show you've acknowledged the offence, but that's a bit pedantic. As long as you've at least been seen to deal with it verbally, nobody is going to be shocked by the YC exiting pocket and fully justifiable in law
 
Libano Ref said:
Incident in my game last week...
Home team leading 2-1... Home Striker blocks & stops Away GK's quickly attempted fly kick in the 78th minute
I give the Away team an IDFK & book the Home striker.

Had a mentor (who's also an observer) there on the day tell me I should not have booked him, as it's not in the laws of the game.
"What's the code for the caution?" he asked (good question offcourse) - I could not think of anything but "Unspecified behaviour" as it obviously wasn't a restart.

Revising it through, he's (probably) right.. but does it make any sense? That a team can do that and get away with it?
A winning team can stop and infuriate a losing team's GK from playing a quick fly kick (i.e to his striker, who could be waiting on the halfway line etc.)

The expectation is for a card to be given.. but I'm baffled that the Laws of the game don't mention this. Can't a team continue to do this, taking turns so that none of them get booked? And then a GK reacts, and gets punished.

Keen to read your thoughts on this!
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The laws of the game used to mention this. Various things have been taken out of the law in recent times, some of which I think could well have been left in, and this is one of them.

Up till 2016, the law used to say that such an offence was a form of playing in a dangerous manner, and then went on to say that:
If a player plays in a dangerous manner in a “normal” challenge, the referee should not take any disciplinary action. If the action is made with obvious risk of injury, the referee should caution the player.
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Since trying to stick your leg in the way when the keeper is fly-kicking it does indeed carry with it an obvious risk of injury, it always used to be a yellow card offence and I think it still should be, because of the way it risks injury to either one or both players.
 
Peter Grove said:
Since trying to stick your leg in the way when the keeper is fly-kicking it does indeed carry with it an obvious risk of injury,
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That is an assumption I am not willing to make unless I can see the action. Blocking the fly click can also be done with sufficient distance from the keeper's foot to mitigate risk of injury. The same way a cross in general play is legally blocked as we see at least a few time a game. Of course the difference is keepers can not be challenged for the ball or prevented from releasing it when in control with hands.

To make this easy, would you caution for the same OP blocking action if the keeper was not in control with the hands, i.e. he was kicking it in general play? If yes then a caution is also warranted here for the fly kick block
 
I think if you tell an observer that: it was blatant gamesmanship, you feel football expects a yellow card, you felt a yellow card was appropriate and that aided match control, and that you deemed it unsporting behaviour - showing a lack of respect for the game... I don't really see how an observer could pedantically dock you marks...
 
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