A&H

Incident Packed Game

Justylove

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Had an incident packed game recently and was being observed on it.

Way too much to go into lots of detail on, however we had 2 separate head injuries incidents, both relating to players clashing with their own team mates, a dog on the pitch, an extra ball on the pitch, a player who when I cautioned him asked me to send him off as he was "sick of playing for this team" and when I only cautioned him made sure he got a second yellow for dissent within seconds, clapped me on the shoulder with a big grin and said "cheers ref, appreciate it" before jogging off the FOP, then sent a substituted player off for OFFINABUS from the dugout, plus 2 open goals missed both from less than 3 yards out! All in all a very odd game.

However two other specific incidents of note:

1) Ball gets kicked forward on on right hand side of pitch, about 5 yards inside the right hand side of 18 yard box, defender and attacker both chasing it, but keeper comes out and collects the ball in his hands, as he picks the ball up, he goes over on his ankle and falls over in obvious pain and manages to carry the ball out of the penalty area in his hands as he rolls in pain. A few members of the attacking team are appealing for a free kick for handball. About 5 minutes of treatment later, keeper is able to continue (but ends up being subbed 5 minutes after that and is the player ironically I send off for OFFINABUS later in the game from the dugout).

2) ball is played forwards, a very high punt. Defender goes to knock it back to the GK with his foot, completely misses the ball which bounces up and on its downward trajectory hits the defenders knee, rolls down his shin onto his toe and then bobbles back to the GK, who promptly picks it up.

Interested to see what people think, then i'll tell you what I did and what the Observer said.....
 
The Referee Store
1) I would personally have given the free kick against the goalkeeper. Although accidental, he is still holding the ball outside of the penalty area. If a player trips and brings down another player, its still a foul. We aren't physios so without being there, we can't rule out the possibility of him accidentally falling and playing acting when he realises he's outside the penalty area

2) This is all down to how you see it. Do you feel like he second attempt was an attempt to play the ball back or a complete miskick? Definitely a YHTBF moment
 
1. I'd be inclined to give the free kick
2. if the first attempt to pass the ball back to the keeper was a swing and a miss, then that shuldnt be a factor in the decision making here ... from your description it sounds like what eventually happened was accidental... play on
 
1) Gotta be DFK. But you could point out to the attackers that the GK went down injured. It's up to them if they sportingly return the ball to the GK's team
2) It's not deliberate, play on (the player's previous act may have been a deliberate attempt but the touches that took the ball to the GK were not as you tell it)

...and our survey said...?
 
1) I managed to blow the whistle just as he was rolling out of the area to stop the game. Did so on the basis of it being the GK, no -one in the vicinity of him so it seemed obvious to me that it was a fairly serious injury. I restarted with a drop ball in just inside the penalty area, which the attacking team chose not to contest.

Observer was happy - thought it was a plus point for alertness and awareness for me that i'd blown the whistle to stop play so quickly, which made it easy to sell the drop ball. Had I not blown when I did, I would have been obliged to give a DFK, which on the basis of how the match was going, would probably not have been sportingly given back, most likely whipped in for them to score from!

2) I gave an IFK, which the attacking team scored from (not directly there was another touch involved).

Discussed this with the observer at length after the game as he said it was one of those real grey areas but in my situation would probably have given the IFK too. His reasoning, which pretty much matched mine was that the player had been deliberately trying to play the ball back to the GK initially, however made a complete mess of it and as part of the same phase of play had actually "kicked" (ball came off the players foot), back to the GK, so in his book it met the criteria of both being a deliberate effort and being kicked through coming off the players foot, albeit in a roundabout way.

I ended up getting a standard expected for the game (all competencies at Standard Expected, with Alertness & Awareness at Above Standard" I got nailed for missing 2 delaying the restart cautions (1 I fully agree with, 1 was so marginal that I took with a pinch of salt), but it was overall a really good learning experience. Game was rated as "challenging"

It was that strange a game, the observer, who has been doing it for many years, needed to spend time with the County FA guys to hep him write it up.

Some of the comments from the observation were
"this was a most unusual game, with numerous quite bizarre incidents" and
"You endeavoured to talk to the players, however they were not at all responsive.
"The standard of football on show was not good and in the circumstances there was little more that you could have done to improve matters".
"I think you are unlikely to ever experience so many unusual incidents in one game again!!"
 
Spirit of the game and all that, sometimes common sense needs to come in. Has he intentionally handled the ball, I think there is sufficient argument to say not. Yes he has handled it, but intentionally? What is the expected decision there, there might be initial complaints but I think most players would be sensible.

I had something similar, or potentially worse this season. Keeper challenged a striker, and in falling clearly dislocated his shoulder, letting out an almighty scream. I went to put my whistle to my mouth but before I blew it the centre half and captain picked the ball up inside the area. Now technically that is a penalty, and a few of the attacking team told me exactly that, but is that the right and fair outcome? I would argue not and I restarted with a dropped ball. The attacking team are probably the most vocal and hardest to referee in the league, and the captain in particular was not at all happy at first, but he accepted it after I asked him if he would have been happy had that happened in his penalty area and I had given a penalty against them.

For the second one that can be backed either way. If you think the keeper handled a ball that was intentionally played to him then you are correct to award an IDFK. If you had felt that it was accidentally played to him then you'd be correct to play on. On decisions like this the better observers should ask you why you gave the decision that way, and if you can present a valid and well thought out argument that is supported by law they should accept that.
 
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