A&H

Communication to goal keeper during penalty sequence

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RefRyanAus

Member
During a fairly standard penalty sequence I gave instructions to the goal keeper that the penalty kick would be taken on my whistle and told both teams to hold outside of the PA. I always try to make the whistle instruction very clear to everyone (I hope).

Immediately before and after blowing my whistle authorising the nominated player to take the penalty kick I repeated to the two teams the instruction to hold as it was clear that they were having difficulty with this instruction. At the time I gave this instruction I was carefully watching the players close to the PA and pointing directly at them.

in any event the penalty was taken and scored with only the defending team being adjudged by me to have encroached into the PA.

After awarding the goal the goal keeper complained that I had confused him by using the word hold as he thought my instruction related to all play and not the movement of the players at the edge of the PA.

I pressed on with my decision but would be interested to hear what all you learned folk might think. Was this approach problematic in your view?
 
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The Referee Store
In your post, you say you, "told both teams to hold outside of PA."

If that's indeed what you said then I would say that's fairly clear and should not have been misunderstood by a goalkeeper to refer to them.

I suppose they're's always an argument that you could have made it even more clear by saying to the goalkeeper something along the lines of, "And you must have one foot on or above the line when the kick is taken."

In fact, you do see top-level referees taking great pains to make this clear to keepers with words and gestures (sometimes to excess I think, especially during KFTPM).

Overall, while it seems to me that what you said was probably sufficient to convey the correct message, including some separate instructions for the goalkeeper might not go amiss, if you want to avoid any possible misunderstanding.
 
Peter Grove said:
In your post, you say you, "told both teams to hold outside of PA."

If that's indeed what you said then I would say that's fairly clear and should not have been misunderstood by a goalkeeper to refer to them.

I suppose they're's always an argument that you could have made it even more clear by saying to the goalkeeper something along the lines of, "And you must have one foot on or above the line when the kick is taken."

In fact, you do see top-level referees taking great pains to make this clear to keepers with words and gestures (sometimes to excess I think, especially during KFTPM).

Overall, while it seems to me that what you said was probably sufficient to convey the correct message, including some separate instructions for the goalkeeper might not go amiss, if you want to avoid any possible misunderstanding.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply Peter. I did provide some earlier instructions to the GK but I take your point that maybe it would have been wise to reiterate the point to both the GK and outfield players at the same time so that it was clear to everyone what the reference to hold was intending to cover.
 
The confusion (or claimed confusion) on the goalkeeper's part could be removed by looking at the front of the penalty area and calling "Outside the area until the ball moves, gents (or ladies, or whatever)"
 
Just point at the goal line and goal frame for the GK, then do the walk and point at the PA arc without saying much of any consequence to the players. That's ticking the observers boxes without cornering yourself with words
Problem with words, is the players will record them as evidence and hold you to account
 
He's a goalkeeper! Unless it was his first ever penalty "event" (unlikely) then you can be pretty sure he knows deep down that when the referee blows his whistle, the bloke who put the ball on the penalty spot is gonna kick it towards his goal!! :rolleyes:

Players will try and blame the referee for anything these days. I'd Ignore it. ;)
 
Exactly. You'd be entirely within your rights to blow for the penalty decision, wait for everyone to set up, blow to allow the penalty to be taken and then jog into the next required position. Anything you do on that is a) optional and b) for the benefit of the players.
 
It’s not a restart that needs over-complicating. If player(s) offend, they can be sanctioned. Simple as that. Every single player, official and coaching staff has seen a penalty taken before.
 
Thanks for your advice everyone. It may be that I am over communicating on these set pieces and will have a think about this for next time. The goal keeper was very experienced and the teams were part of an academy group so it certainly wasn’t their first rodeo. :)
 
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