This was on HIVE a new resource for Supply League Referees and Observers (and above) provided by The FA. This is the official comment on this clip. As it's the official clip, it represents The FA's expectations in this situation if it ever happens to you...
Once again, this is a very interesting clip with some really important learning messages for the Referee. As such, it’s vital that we share this kind of content to the wider groups so that we can educate and develop our thought processes should this kind of incident happen in one of our games.
As a Referee our alarm bells should be ringing the moment we see the attacker approaching the goalkeeper. It is very late in the game and essentially we should be wanting to close the game off safely and securely and not wanting to jeopardise the match control that we may have built up.
Whilst some may argue that the attacker does not intend to challenge for the ball and accidentally slips into the challenge – his actions clearly make contact with the goalkeeper, in this particular case causing a temporary fault with his equipment (his footwear). So, therefore and understandably our practical recommendations for the Referee to apply within the laws of the game are as follows:
• Recognise the attackers intentions as ‘careless’
• Stop the game
• Award the free kick to the defending team
• Draw closer to the incident and give proximity to both goalkeeper and attacker
• Explain to the attacker that whilst they might not be his intentions, the actions are still careless and that you have a responsibility to award the free kick.
• Allow the goalkeeper the time to correct any equipment before restarting the game.
We can understand that in this clip the Referee may have deemed that because the Goalkeeper was still in possession of the ball he was ‘technically’ unaffected by the actions of the attacker and was therefore happy for play to continue.
Additionally, we also recognise that on occasion, teams may prefer to continue with the game from a goalkeeper ‘fly kick’ rather than a goal kick/free kick restart. But on this occasion that adds to the complexity of the thought process when the simplest, safest and most practical thing to do is to stop the game and award the free kick.
We often talk about awarding and giving what the game expects in these kind of circumstances, for the Referee to show an understanding and empathy for the game. Collectively, we can all agree that nobody at this game expected for the Referee to act/not act in the way that he did let alone permit the restart which lead to a goal. As Referees and Observers we could gauge our actions by asking ourselves a very simple question in exceptional incidents of this nature – Does the game expect this ?
Match control, game safety and demonstrating an empathy for the game is essential here and implementing the practical guidelines above will see Referees adopt a more cautious, sensible and expected approach to incidents of this nature.
Dan Meeson
FA National Referee Development Manager