Hi all I had my second game yesterday. All was good only blew up 4 times but the only question I have is. I had an incident where the attacking team were running through on goal and he went down in the penalty area. I blew for a penalty as it looked like he got tripped but then he came up to me and said "he didn't touch me ref I just slipped!" So I respected his honesty and awarded an indirect free kick to the defending team. Was this the correct decision??
correct decision
- Thread starter Tommy
- Start date
Paul March
Well-Known Member
Brings to mind the famous Robbie Fowler penalty, he too informed the ref that he had slipped, but the penalty still stood and it was scored on the rebound as I recall.
Peter Grove
RefChat Addict
You say "it looked like he got tripped" which somewhat implies that you weren't absolutely 100% sure a foul had occurred. So the first point I think, is to be wary of awarding penalties if you're not totally certain of what happened. The second point I would make its to also to be wary of believing everything that players tell you. I don't mean to sound too cynical or to suggest you should automatically dismiss everything they say but there could be various reasons that a player might want to misrepresent a situation to you, even if it appears to disadvantage their own team.
In this particular situation, since it seems that perhaps you weren't absolutely sure about the decision to start with, there's probably a chance the player was telling the truth. However if you're 100% sure of a decision, I wouldn't go changing it just because a player has a different opinion.
Tommy, the above posts are correct with regards to a restart. By blowing your whistle, you have stopped play. If you go against your decision, it would be a dropped ball.
However...
Although not correct in law, fair play won in this situation. Great effort by the attacker to admit that he had tripped. Obviously he didn't have to say/do that, 99% of them wouldn't. Whilst I would have awarded the dropped ball, I am sure the outcome of either that dropped ball or an idfk would have been the same... the defending team winning possession.
What should you do better for next time and what are the learning points here... positioning. Get closer to the play so that you can see exactly what contact was made (if any) to ensure you make the correct call. If in any doubt over a penalty shout, do not award one. You are basically giving one side a goal because you "think" he was fouled. It's better not to give a goal because you "think" it wasn't a foul
However...
Although not correct in law, fair play won in this situation. Great effort by the attacker to admit that he had tripped. Obviously he didn't have to say/do that, 99% of them wouldn't. Whilst I would have awarded the dropped ball, I am sure the outcome of either that dropped ball or an idfk would have been the same... the defending team winning possession.
What should you do better for next time and what are the learning points here... positioning. Get closer to the play so that you can see exactly what contact was made (if any) to ensure you make the correct call. If in any doubt over a penalty shout, do not award one. You are basically giving one side a goal because you "think" he was fouled. It's better not to give a goal because you "think" it wasn't a foul