Junior/Youth Goal sizes

[Jmorley]

Hi all

Last Sunday I was refereeing a semi-final at a leisure centre.

They offered two choices of goal:
An adults goal,
and a goal that was 5 feet narrower than the competition rules.

The competition rules said that if the right sized goal wasn’t available then an adults goal was to be used.
However, both managers were happier use the nets that were 5 feet too narrow.

Yes the competition rules state use the adult goals but both managers preferred the smaller goals, would you let them use the smaller nets or use the comp rules and make use of the adult goals, which the U13’s looked ridiculous in due to the size!

Jacob M

 

[Mintyref]

Competition rules are paramount, failure to follow could cause all sorts of problems, result chalked off and replay required to say nothing of the problems coming your way!

 

[zarathustra]

Competition rules, if the coaches don’t like it then tough.

If you played with the narrower goals then the losing team could complain which could result in the fixtures being replayed etc.

Although in this case both teams were equally disadvantaged.

 

[boulderdomb]

Competition rules should always be followed regardless of what both coaches want. However, if the adult net was not available I'd have both coaches sign the teamline that they've agreed to use smaller nets and then report in a match incident form - this way as described above the losing coach could not complain.

You could always have called the match secretary for advice too.

 

[Jmorley]

Hi all

Thanks for your responses, I did play the match with the goals following competition rules on that weekend.
Glad to know everyone else would’ve made the same decision.

Jacob M