A&H

Blocking the Fly Kick

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Wolfy123

New Member
I was on the line for a game last week whereby the striker had a good go at attempting to stop stop the keeper from punting his drop kick up the field. The ref brings play back to caution and restarts with IDFK.
I asked the ref what he has cautioned for as this wasn't a promising attack, and certainly wasn't reckless. C1 unspecified was the answer.

Do we think that these are manditory cautions? It seems to be that most people say its always a caution, but no one really knows why. Does anyone have any formal advice that they have received for such an occasion?
 
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There is no requirement to caution in law, unless as you point out SPA or reckless.

A lot of referees incorrectly caution for delaying restart - it is not a restart.

Football expects a caution here. The sensible referee prevents it in the first place by recognising what's going on and dealing with it. One of those where the right decision causes you more aggro.
 
There is nothing in the magic book that says this is a mandatory caution.

The only place I know of where instruction has said it is a caution is the now defunct USSF Advice to Referees included it in a list of additional examples of USB besides those in the LOTG.

I think that leaves it ITOOTR as to whether a particular attempt to block a GK's kick was USB behavior that needs to be stamped out with a caution. It is certainly "knucklehead" behavior, and I certainly don't have any sympathy for the player who got cautioned. (I personally would support IFAB adding it to the list of examples of USB, but they don't ask me for opinions.)
 
I've only cautioned for this for two reasons. One is that a team are chasing a goal and have totally overloaded, so if the keeper gets a drop kick away his team have a player unmarked on the half way line. This is very rare though.

More common is I deem the dangling of a leg as the keeper goes to kick it as reckless. I've seen a keeper get badly injured by this as he kicked into the dangling foot with full force as he went to kick the ball. Actually sent a player off for a second yellow in a supply league cup final for just that.
 
JamesL said:
There is no requirement to caution in law, unless as you point out SPA or reckless.

A lot of referees incorrectly caution for delaying restart - it is not a restart.

Football expects a caution here. The sensible referee prevents it in the first place by recognising what's going on and dealing with it. One of those where the right decision causes you more aggro.
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Classing the scenario as USB?
 

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wazztie16 said:
Classing the scenario as USB?
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Opinion or ref I suppose. I think this is such a frequent occurrence and a listed offence I'd expect it to be mentioned as a mandatory caution if it were indeed meant to be
 
JamesL said:
Opinion or ref I suppose. I think this is such a frequent occurrence and a listed offence I'd expect it to be mentioned as a mandatory caution if it were indeed meant to be
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I would personally class it as USB, but then I do sometimes wonder if I have a lower tolerance to things like this than others.

At the end of the day, imo, it's an unsporting thing to do. It's behaviour of a player. That's good enough for me.
 
JamesL said:
Opinion or ref I suppose. I think this is such a frequent occurrence and a listed offence I'd expect it to be mentioned as a mandatory caution if it were indeed meant to be
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IMO it is crystal clear that it is not a "mandatory" caution as it is not in the magic book in the Laws themselves or any of the guidance.

For me, whether to caution depends on the nature of the effort by the opponent. The more aggressive the more likely I'm reaching in my pocket. And with 14U boys, which may be the only place I've actually had it happen in a game, I'm more likely to caution to make sure it isn't going to happen again, as that group seems particular adept at finding stupid things to do. (I wouldn't be surprised if more refs in the US are going to caution this than in many other places, as it was official teaching in the US for many years that it was USB to interfere with the GK release of the ball.)
 
At the Level 4 development day at the start of this season this was one of the quiz questions and the discussion after made it very clear that it is not a caution unless reckless play has occured.

If a player fouls the goalkeeper then you've got the chance to caution for reckless, but most of these occurances end up with attempted blocks and its just a standard IDFK.
 
Saw a player for our local Southern Premier League side get booked for it last season. He was a good 10 yards away and he turned and jumped up and because the keeper kicked it low and flat it hit him on the back.
 
Wolfy123 said:
I was on the line for a game last week whereby the striker had a good go at attempting to stop stop the keeper from punting his drop kick up the field. The ref brings play back to caution and restarts with IDFK.
I asked the ref what he has cautioned for as this wasn't a promising attack, and certainly wasn't reckless. C1 unspecified was the answer.

Do we think that these are manditory cautions? It seems to be that most people say its always a caution, but no one really knows why. Does anyone have any formal advice that they have received for such an occasion?
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USB - dangerous play?
 
wazztie16 said:
I would personally class it as USB, but then I do sometimes wonder if I have a lower tolerance to things like this than others.

At the end of the day, imo, it's an unsporting thing to do. It's behaviour of a player. That's good enough for me.
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I get where you're coming from with this, but I'd also say that arguably any foul is USB if you think about it in a certain way. However we're not going to caution for every foul.
 
This topic seems to be resurfacing every 6 months or so.

JamesL said:
Football expects a caution here.
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Depended where you are in the world.

I feel there should be a clarification in law to stops this from happening as a mandatory caution. The sameas every blatant handball used to be cautioned untill the laws made it clears that it's only a caution for SPA cases.
 
I personally feel that there are several pieces of guidance to referees that used to be in the law before the 2016 rewrite that are still sound advice and should probably still be there. This is one of them.

In the laws document for 2015/16 we find the following two statements:

• A player must be penalised for playing in a dangerous manner if he kicks or attempts to kick the ball when the goalkeeper is in the process of releasing it
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[...]
• 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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(Emphasis mine).

And in general, I would say that trying to block a keeper's fly kick is often an inherently risky thing to do, as it can so easily lead to the outcome mentioned by @RustyRef above.

I think this also explains why many referees who were refereeing before 2016 still tend to caution for this - at least in instances when it is done with an obvious risk of injury, as mentioned in the older laws documents.
 
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Peter Grove said:
I personally feel that there are several pieces of guidance to referees that used to be in the law before the 2016 rewrite that are still sound advice and should probably still be there. This is one of them.

In the laws document for 2015/16 we find the following two statements:


[...]

(Emphasis mine).

And in general, I would say that trying to block a keeper's fly kick is often an inherently risky thing to do, as it can so easily lead to the outcome mentioned by @RustyRef above.

I think this also explains why many referees who were refereeing before 2016 still tend to caution for this - at least in instances when it is done with an obvious risk of injury, as mentioned in the older laws documents.
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So I wasn’t imagining reading it, despite not being able to find it.

Seem to remember Thierry Henry being cautioned for kicking the ball midway between the drop from hands and the actual kick - possibly with Brad Friedel involved?
 
socal lurker said:
dangerous play isn't a caution. Reckless play is.
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Dangerous play is a caution

Unsporting Behaviour – further defined as:
AA Adopting an aggressive attitude
DI Simulation
DP Dangerous Play
FT Foul Tackle
GC Goal Celebration
HB Handball RP Reckless Play
SP Pushing or Pulling an opponent
TR Tripping
UB Unspecified Behaviour
 
Gamespoiler said:
Dangerous play is a caution

Unsporting Behaviour – further defined as:
AA Adopting an aggressive attitude
DI Simulation
DP Dangerous Play
FT Foul Tackle
GC Goal Celebration
HB Handball RP Reckless Play
SP Pushing or Pulling an opponent
TR Tripping
UB Unspecified Behaviour
Click to expand...
This logic also says all foul tackles or pushing/pulling opponents are also a caution.

On another point, it has to be clear the list is not from LOTG.
 
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