The Ref Stop

Fulham vs Ipswich

RefereeX said:
Further to this, can you fathom any other reason that law might say a player should be cautioned for putting their shirt over their head than for situations where they put their shirt over their head?

As James has pointed out, the reason that law states that a goalkeeper can't release the ball and then recollect it is to stop goalkeepers from doing it to waste time effectively. This action clearly does not waste time, and hence we don't feel it needs punishing. The argument about whether the keeper is wasting time with his other actions is a totally separate one, but that renders the goalkeepers release of the ball totally irrelevant.
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I have zero idea. I've always thought its a stupid law that has no bearing or affect on anything, but its still punished as per law. So why is this punished but not the 6 seconds or putting the ball down and picking it back up? This is my entire point, as I've said a couple of times now. All the sets of law here are seemingly deemed to have no affect on anything, but 1 is consistently punished and the others aren't
 
The Ref Stop
Runner Ref said:
Law is black & white on both matters. As it is for the shirt over the head, which you copy & pasted here.

If law isn't intended for this, then law needs to read such matters shouldn't be published if this happens under x,y & z circumstances. But it doesn't, it just says its punishable by IDFK.
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And we come full circle to something that I have long argued on here. That when the laws change, an explanation is provided as to why, usually providing clarification or pertinence, once the new edition is released that is lost and what is written can then be read differently and interpreted differently without the explanation.

Which is why I say it's one thing to know the laws, another to understand them and know how they should be applied

You can argue all you like about law being black and white, but laws are not, and never have been which is why lawyers are paid lots and lots of money to argue and convince judges how laws should be applied or how they have or haven't been broken. Laws are grey. That's life.

Unless you want a 2000 page law book listing every possible scenario then this is what we have. I can believe you want to punish the time wasting, that makes perfect sense, but I honestly can't believe anyone who has any interest in football, and doesn't have any biases in this particular game looks at this and thinks aha lets punish the keeper for letting go of the ball for less than a second whilst he stands up.

Anyone with an understanding of why that law exists in the first place (from a time before I was even born) reading between the lines keepers were bending the 4 step rule by putting the ball down and moving to where they want in whatever time they want and picking it up again, or putting the ball down and waiting to be challenged and picking it up again ,can see that what happens in this clip is not why this law was brought in.
 
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JamesL said:
And we come full circle to something that I have long argued on here. That when the laws change, an explanation is provided as to why, usually providing clarification or pertinence, once the new edition is released that is lost and what is written can then be read differently and interpreted differently without the explanation.

Which is why I say it's one thing to know the laws, another to understand them and know how they should be applied

You can argue all you like about law being black and white, but laws are not, and never have been which is why lawyers are paid lots and lots of money to argue and convince judges how laws should be applied or how they have or haven't been broken. Laws are grey. That's life.

Unless you want a 2000 page law book listing every possible scenario then this is what we have. I can believe you want to punish the time wasting, that makes perfect sense, but I honestly can't believe anyone who has any interest in football, and doesn't have any biases in this particular game looks at this and thinks aha lets punish the keeper for letting go of the ball for less than a second whilst he stands up.

Anyone with an understanding of why that law exists in the first place (from a time before I was even born) reading between the lines keepers were bending the 4 step rule by putting the ball down and moving to where they want in whatever time they want and picking it up again, or putting the ball down and waiting to be challenged and picking it up again ,can see that what happens in this clip is not why this law was brought in.
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It doesn't need a 2000 page book to cover every scenario. But its not difficult to read, 'if a goalkeeper takes more than 6 seconds with the ball in their hands, an IDFK will be awarded to the opposition'- then referees follow that. But instead we're seemingly left with needing to know why a law was changed, does football expect it and so on. And there is no need for that.
 
one said:
Not quite. Easy to apply black and white laws to black and white situations. The problem is when the situation is not back and white.

Let's take your shirt covering black and white celebration law. A player scores, slides on the ground to celebrate and while on ground his team mate covers the scorers head with the scorers shirt. Will you caution? Whatever your answer, it requires some lateral thinking and situational analysis rather than black and white application.

In post 19 situation, the keeper clearly didn't intend to release the ball. While the release may fall under a strict definition, he was always in control of it by English definition. There was nothing sinister there, by intent or consequence. IMO picking on it is looking for a problem that doesn't exit.
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Yes.
 
So are we in agreement that the release of the ball was irrelevant and not worthy of highlighting, but the issue for you is how long the goalkeeper has the ball in his hands?
 
santa sangria said:
Ironically (?) in futsal this would be punished and a whistle expected. In football not.

The laws are word for word the same.

This what is great and awful about football refereeing. And this thread is like the back page of the Mirror in microcosm.
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And in Futsal it have even would have less impact if you didn't give it as the count would still be ongoing and they'd be punished for 4 seconds violation very swiftly.

8 seconds law change can't come soon enough.
Although I imagine football refs will still allow them to lay on it and spend 5 seconds getting up before they start counting.
 
Runner Ref said:
Of course a goalkeeper continually delaying the restart is affecting goals scored. Less time the ball is playable, less time there is for goals.

You’ve just mentioned goals scored/conceded, yet earlier you said the action isn’t about how a game finishes. That basically means end scoreline……

This is the last post I’m going to make as we’re going round and round in circles. But ultimately, the elite pick and choose what they want because they think they know ‘what football wants’. Ultimately this doesn’t really mean anything, as football is not a person, so I don’t understand how anyone can know what it wants. Football has some of the simplest laws in sport, but we probably ignore them most than other sports. If football doesn’t expect goalkeepers to be punished for holding onto the ball or for putting the ball down after holding it, fine, take it out.
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The elite officials do not ‘pick and choose’ how to referee their games. They are given clear instructions by their bosses and they do their best to follow these instructions in order to deliver consistency to teams. Because they are human and under intense pressure, they don’t always manage to do this.

Those instructions arise after clear dialogue with key stakeholders (EPL, EFL, teams etc) and are designed solely to (aim to) deliver the best possible product for the viewing public. Football at these levels is far more a big budget entertainment business than it is a mere sport. Whilst it would be super helpful for grassroots referees if the matches on TV were officiated in a purist way, the reality is that this is not the case and will not be in the future. Anyone hoping / expecting this to be the case is in for perpetual disappointment.

The good news however, is that there is (if you look closely) a helpful trend towards stricter adherence to some aspects of the law book. Dissent and DTR are now far more frequently punished, fouls are no longer generally awarded for trivial contact and handballs are way less likely than to be given for arm positions justifiable by the body movement. So grassroots referees should feel more supported in their efforts to apply the laws than previously. But, to be clear, this isn’t happening because of a philanthropic desire to support grassroots but because it is creating a better spectacle at the elite levels.
 
Russell Jones said:
The elite officials do not ‘pick and choose’ how to referee their games. They are given clear instructions by their bosses and they do their best to follow these instructions in order to deliver consistency to teams. Because they are human and under intense pressure, they don’t always manage to do this.

Those instructions arise after clear dialogue with key stakeholders (EPL, EFL, teams etc) and are designed solely to (aim to) deliver the best possible product for the viewing public. Football at these levels is far more a big budget entertainment business than it is a mere sport. Whilst it would be super helpful for grassroots referees if the matches on TV were officiated in a purist way, the reality is that this is not the case and will not be in the future. Anyone hoping / expecting this to be the case is in for perpetual disappointment.

The good news however, is that there is (if you look closely) a helpful trend towards stricter adherence to some aspects of the law book. Dissent and DTR are now far more frequently punished, fouls are no longer generally awarded for trivial contact and handballs are way less likely than to be given for arm positions justifiable by the body movement. So grassroots referees should feel more supported in their efforts to apply the laws than previously. But, to be clear, this isn’t happening because of a philanthropic desire to support grassroots but because it is creating a better spectacle at the elite levels.
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So yes, the elite do pick and choose what to punish. The powers that be are the elite in the same way the referees themselves are.

They do indeed speak to key stakeholders, but this obviously isn’t working. As clubs and fans are getting more and more frustrated with refereeing.

I don’t buy that dissent is being clamped down on much more. There are still tonnes of examples of players crowding referees and referees choosing to ignore it. We have Jared Gillet caution someone for it earlier in the season, then is basically got forgotten about. You then have Harry Wilson calling DB an effing chest. So no, they aren’t clamping down on it.
 
Runner Ref said:
So yes, the elite do pick and choose what to punish. The powers that be are the elite in the same way the referees themselves are.

They do indeed speak to key stakeholders, but this obviously isn’t working. As clubs and fans are getting more and more frustrated with refereeing.

I don’t buy that dissent is being clamped down on much more. There are still tonnes of examples of players crowding referees and referees choosing to ignore it. We have Jared Gillet caution someone for it earlier in the season, then is basically got forgotten about. You then have Harry Wilson calling DB an effing chest. So no, they aren’t clamping down on it.
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Clubs and fans are not getting more and more frustrated with refereeing because dissent was missed or a goalkeeper wasn't penalised for taking more than 6 seconds. If they are, it's down to a sudden expectation that VAR means all people should agree with 100% of decisions and mistakes are never made. Anyone with a brain knows that's never going to be the case, but this is the reason for the increased frustration.
If referees started following every law to the letter, then still making occasional mistakes on KMI's then I think it would be foolish to not think this frustration would be twofold.
Pick your battles. It's 100% necessary to do so.
 
Runner Ref said:
As clubs and fans are getting more and more frustrated with refereeing.
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Clubs and fans are getting frustrated by what they perceive as wrong decisions, and VAR not fixing it. There has been a huge amount of debate about decisions over the weekend, every decision has been done to death on multiple talksport (and other platforms, just that I listen to this) shows since then with numerous refereeing "experts" brought in to dissect them. Not once have I heard them discuss a potential issue of a keeper handling the ball twice.

If this had been penalised I am sure they would have been even more frustrated as they would see it as a referee getting involved unnecessarily and "making it all about themselves". Just as a huge percentage of fans are saying about Taylor giving the penalty for the head contact.
 
RustyRef said:
Clubs and fans are getting frustrated by what they perceive as wrong decisions, and VAR not fixing it. There has been a huge amount of debate about decisions over the weekend, every decision has been done to death on multiple talksport (and other platforms, just that I listen to this) shows since then with numerous refereeing "experts" brought in to dissect them. Not once have I heard them discuss a potential issue of a keeper handling the ball twice.

If this had been penalised I am sure they would have been even more frustrated as they would see it as a referee getting involved unnecessarily and "making it all about themselves". Just as a huge percentage of fans are saying about Taylor giving the penalty for the head contact.
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Which BBC’s Match of the Day experienced commentator completely agreed with, saying if it was anywhere else on the pitch, a free kick would have been awarded. For what it’s worth, I am torn.
 
DavidObs said:
Which BBC’s Match of the Day experienced commentator completely agreed with, saying if it was anywhere else on the pitch, a free kick would have been awarded. For what it’s worth, I am torn.
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From the soundbites I've heard a lot of commentators and presenters support it, majority of ex-players think it was completely wrong, majority of those from a refereeing background think it was correct, and the majority of fans think it was wrong.
 
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