The Ref Stop

Drop ball. How are your leagues handling it?

R

RobOda

RefChat Addict
Level 3 Referee
Out of interest, and because this was not something I was expecting teams to struggle with this season;

At the higher tiers, I find teams are comfortable with drop ball changes, but at grassroots I'm finding players are getting really argumentative over the bloody process.

Two weeks back, I stopped play for an injury, should be a simple drop ball incident, but they were adamant they'd play it back to the opposition for whatever reason.

Last Saturday, both teams wanted to contest it, then they negotiated to play it back to each other, then they tried to swap who was taking the drop ball. I wasn't expecting the need to go over this, this late in the season, but the players seemed to really not like the whole process. If it's not 'oh we'll play it back', it's 'oh, let them have it instead'.

Anyone else encountering this? I've no idea why it's such a controversial issue, I would have thought the team getting the drop ball would be content with carrying on, but apparently not?
 
The Ref Stop
I agree, what is everyone doing? I had two of the top four teams in the premier division of my Sunday league two days ago and they didn't appear to know that drop balls are all uncontested. Then both wanted to give it back to the other team. Then the team who didn't have possession wanted their player a yard from the drop ball - "how far?!"
I finally managed to persuade them that I knew what I was doing and dropped the ball, only for the player to kick it straight at my leg and out of play for a throw-in! I have to admit, I did actually cheat and allowed him to retake it because the player who had wanted to be stood next to the drop ball had run in and was not much further than a yard away anyway.

Then half an hour later they were having a go at me about something else and one of them actually made the comment "you need to learn the rules!" I felt like telling them that "at least I know how to drop the ball!" (I didn't because I'd already worked them up quite a lot and thought it might kick off!)
 
I kinda suspect that the referee fraternity has part of the blame on players not know the DB rules. We have colleagues that don't do a good job keeping up applying the rules. I wouldn't be at all surprised if last week's ref had a contested DB.
 
If I ever have a dropped ball I explain to the captains /nearby players the reason I've given the DP, I explain how the restart works, and tell the player who I'm dropping it to that it's in play when it touches the ground, keeping opponents at least the minimum distance away.

Not had any issues yet.

Just shout that it's uncontested so as many people as possible can hear, that sort of thing.
 
I was playing a fortnight ago. Ref had to drop the ball for me following opposition injury. My captain tells me 'kick it back to their keeper' so I did :-)

Teams still like to do this as an act of respect and civility (odd when the rest of the game they giving merry hell!)
 
Hate it, and I agree with the OP, I really didn't see any problems occurring but they absolutely do.

The issue is always the head/bad injury that occurs with the attacking team in possession just outside the opponent's PA. In the old days, you'd drop it to the defending team, they'd boot it back to the attacking team's GK and they'd get to build an attack from the half way line. Now, you have to
1) stop,
2) explain it,
3) persuade everyone involved that this is actually how it works now,
4) persuade someone else that they can't just do a contested one
5) manage keeping players 4 yards away (technically impossible to do 360 degrees around you)

And then after all that, 2 out of 3 times I've had to do this I've had a defender lunge in and end up giving a controversial FK and have a YC decision to make from the same position you were in anyway. And the other time, the attacker took a heravy touch and then HE lunged into a defender - if it wasn't for the fact I quickly blew for full time, that would have been a full-on mass con.

And all of this because IFAB didn't like how the old "kick it back to the keeper" system looked.
 
GraemeS said:
And all of this because IFAB didn't like how the old "kick it back to the keeper" system looked.
Click to expand...

I don't think the change had anything to do with optics of when it worked. It had to do with the cluster%$# when it didn't. Which could be the honest pass back to the GK that goes into the goal, the dishonest teammate who chases it down and scores, or the times when teams decline the sporting start.

But I also think that the new DB causes more problems than it solves, as those problems were few and far between in actual experience. I also think that the problem they were trying to solve could have been handled much more simply: call it USB if a team agrees to do something with a DB that the other team does not contest and fails to do it.
 
Just remove the dropped ball restart all together and replace with a goal kick to the team who kicked off in the corresponding half.

As it stands the team that regains possession is not always the right team anyway (discussed in other threads). Above solution is just as good as the existing one as far as fairness but much simpler.
 
I thought it was the contested drop ball that was the issue - I saw it last season where both players went for the ball and one promptly got kicked by the other. Cue an injury, cue injured player calling the ref names for doing a contested drop ball (!)
 
afronaut81 said:
I thought it was the contested drop ball that was the issue - I saw it last season where both players went for the ball and one promptly got kicked by the other. Cue an injury, cue injured player calling the ref names for doing a contested drop ball (!)
Click to expand...
But this is exactly my point. I so rarely had to do a contested drop ball under the old system, even less times before they banned "manufacturing an outcome". And when I did, both players swiped at the ball but it was usually OK.

Under the new system you don't call it an uncontrolled drop ball, but it functionally is - except one team gets a 4-yard run up before they go for the ball to make it even more dangerous!
 
I have had one contested drop ball in @500 games of football and futsal as a ref/AR. None that I can remember aa a player.

Dreading this when we have to start with it next season!
 
GraemeS said:
But this is exactly my point. I so rarely had to do a contested drop ball under the old system, even less times before they banned "manufacturing an outcome". And when I did, both players swiped at the ball but it was usually OK.
Click to expand...

Hmm. The Laws never gave the R authority to dictate the outcome of a DB.

I've conducted many contested DBs, and seen many, many more. Never seen an injury. It's really not that different from plays that happen in the run of play.
 
socal lurker said:
Hmm. The Laws never gave the R authority to dictate the outcome of a DB.

I've conducted many contested DBs, and seen many, many more. Never seen an injury. It's really not that different from plays that happen in the run of play.
Click to expand...
Quick response because I've got to go, but you can see in this document: http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/assets/documents/IFAB_laws_of_the_game_changes.pdf discussing law changes for the 16/17 season that the following text is listed as a change:
Referee can not ‘manufacture’ outcome of a dropped ball
Click to expand...

Granted, I don't have the previous year's LOTG available, but at the very least this tells us that referees were encouraging a particular result and IFAB decided that it needed to be made clearer that this is not acceptable.

Anyway, that's a massive side-note, as I didn't really have any major problems under the old system, regardless of if I could manufacture a result or not.
 
GraemeS said:
Granted, I don't have the previous year's LOTG available, but at the very least this tells us that referees were encouraging a particular result and IFAB decided that it needed to be made clearer that this is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

Yes--they made it explicit because there were a couple of weird games where refs did strange things.
 
Only issue ive got with no assistants in my games if i drop a ball to a player and he sends a long ball 50 yards, how the fcuk am i supposed to judge offside !!
 
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