A&H

Man City v Shaktar Donetsk

I'm sure the Citee brigade will be on in a bit defending it!!!

Well it certainly was not a dive! I find it remarkable that Sterling is being criticised. This season we've had players score goals with their hands and stop goals with their hands (deliberately I should add). We've had dives to win penalties most weeks. At no point has anyone said that the offending players should tell the referee that the decision is wrong.
 
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Let's just say that Sterling does tell the referee that he tripped over himself and that it isn't a penalty. In law, what are the referees options? I think most would stick with the penalty and allow the player to deliberately miss the penalty to right the wrong. Perhaps a drop ball could be awarded but I'm not sure under what law this could be justified under?
 
Let's just say that Sterling does tell the referee that he tripped over himself and that it isn't a penalty. In law, what are the referees options? I think most would stick with the penalty and allow the player to deliberately miss the penalty to right the wrong. Perhaps a drop ball could be awarded but I'm not sure under what law this could be justified under?

Of course there IS an obvious solution - Pep said that Man City don't want to score goals like that and Sterling knew it wasn't a penalty.

Just miss the pen then - why couldn't/didn't they just do that?
 
Let's just say that Sterling does tell the referee that he tripped over himself and that it isn't a penalty. In law, what are the referees options? I think most would stick with the penalty and allow the player to deliberately miss the penalty to right the wrong. Perhaps a drop ball could be awarded but I'm not sure under what law this could be justified under?
The dropped ball law.

Law 8: "A dropped ball is the restart when the referee stops play and the Law does not require one of the above restarts."
 
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Of course there IS an obvious solution - Pep said that Man City don't want to score goals like that and Sterling knew it wasn't a penalty.

Just miss the pen then - why couldn't/didn't they just do that?

it's not really a suitable solution though, like when one team lets another score (for whatever reason).

a better solution is something the ref can enforce not rely on clubs goodwill
 
Let's just say that Sterling does tell the referee that he tripped over himself and that it isn't a penalty. In law, what are the referees options? I think most would stick with the penalty and allow the player to deliberately miss the penalty to right the wrong. Perhaps a drop ball could be awarded but I'm not sure under what law this could be justified under?
Stops play for any other reason.
EXACTLY the same if the AR tells you 'mate, that wasn't a foul'.

But something has gone wrong. The AR needed to intervene here. Though maybe he did over the comms and ref shot him down.

Also, the PK is a disaster. This is a stopped runup for me. And, as always, everybody is well into the box.

ANY OTHER SPORT finds it very simple to enforce 'stay behind the line' rules. None of this 'minor infringement' garbage.

Whether the player has entered the PA is an objective fact. Trying to make subjective decisions from objective facts is just messy.
 
Stops play for any other reason.
EXACTLY the same if the AR tells you 'mate, that wasn't a foul'.

But something has gone wrong. The AR needed to intervene here. Though maybe he did over the comms and ref shot him down.

Also, the PK is a disaster. This is a stopped runup for me. And, as always, everybody is well into the box.

ANY OTHER SPORT finds it very simple to enforce 'stay behind the line' rules. None of this 'minor infringement' garbage.

Whether the player has entered the PA is an objective fact. Trying to make subjective decisions from objective facts is just messy.

Agreed. I play cricket and if the bowler goes even 1mm over the popping crease when he bowls then it's a no ball and if a batsman does it then he is stumped. There's no 'game management' because the governing bodies are too weak to ensure that the laws are enforced, the umpires are told to enforce them properly.

Now in football, encroachment, time wasting, keepers coming off their line at pens, shirt pulling in the box, dissent etc are all against the LOTG put are all accepted by referees at the top level, and this is encouraged by governing bodies or 'managed'. This shows weakness imo and panders to the offenders. If the laws were applied strictly then the behaviour of the players would have to change and we'd have a much better game for it. It just seems weak and counter productive to concentrate on how officials can manage infringements of the LOTG as opposed to actually being encouraged to apply them. The often poor behaviour towards officials is largely a consequence of a lack of respect for the job that they do, and how can we command respect when we are encouraged to ignore certain offences etc?

I'm not saying it would be easy to apply the LOTG strictly, but to me it is far more beneficial than ignoring things and managing situations to suit the referee.
 
Yep. And I actually think that applying the laws more strictly actually makes it LESS about the referee, not more. As it stands, everything is so subjective that it makes every decision about the referee's judgement rather than the player's actions.

Look at shirt removal - consistent, zero tolerance. Everyone knows, and everybody knows it's the player's fault. Easy. There's no 'he didn't have to give that one', 'ref is making it about him' 'ref should have managed the situation'. No, it's 'you know the law, you chose to cross it, here's your accountability'.

As both an ex-ref and a fan, I think the game would be far better if that approach was more broadly applied.
 
When did an AR ever overrule a referee's decision to award a penalty?



Me, on live tv......the ref came over and said "am still giving it" to which I said "its not a f word penalty", he then realised I was serious and gave a drop ball....

It made back pages the next day and was the topic of the football pull out section on the Monday....fortunately for good reasons...

There was also in Scotland,, in 2010? the small matter of an assistant over turning a pk at Tannadice which led to court cases and resignations and strikes!
 
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it's not really a suitable solution though, like when one team lets another score (for whatever reason).

a better solution is something the ref can enforce not rely on clubs goodwill
it's not really a suitable solution though, like when one team lets another score (for whatever reason).

a better solution is something the ref can enforce not rely on clubs goodwill

But the ref thinks it a pen, otherwise he wouldn't give it!
 
EXACTLY! I've said that to quite a few players/benches as an AR!
Apart from maverick Ciley, it's very rare indeed
It's the nature of football refereeing that kinda necessitates a single decision maker
I leave the AR's 'in charge' of ball in & out of play. I then go with whatever they indicate, because any conflict between the officials is a green light for dissent. So we agree before the game who is in charge of exactly what to avoid the chaos ;)
 
This is 100% true btw....the time I did it...was a midweek game, thing is....same thing had happened to the ref the prev Sat ! Gave a pk, and the ar called him over and he changed decison

Wait for ages for a bus then they all arrive...
 
As far as I'm concerned, the one who should be helping the referee out here, is the AAR. When they were analysing this on a highlights show, there was a freeze frame that seems to show he had a pretty much unencumbered view of it. If the AR was where he should be, his view was very possibly blocked by one of the three players in the middle of the area. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main arguments for having AAR's in the first place, was that they could assist with incidents like this in the penalty area where the other match officials were unsighted.

IMG_20181109_104923.png
 
When did an AR ever overrule a referee's decision to award a penalty?
I don't particularly like using the term 'overrule' - what happens (or what should happen) is that the other match official advises the referee of additional information that they may not be aware of, to assist the referee in coming to the correct decision, especially when they have a better view than the referee or have seen something the referee has missed. I've seen it happen a few times on penalties, including some in televised games in the Premier League and/or Championship. It's not common but it's not unprecedented either.

Here's just one example - you can't see it on the video but as I recall (and as the reports at the time indicated) the referee initially went to give the corner but then awarded the penalty after getting information from the AR. So this was a decision given after consulting with the AR (so an 'overrule' if you like) - although in this case, I'm not 100% convinced they got it right.

 
Some referees on the PL don’t like assistance from the assistants! I went to a game where the now head of PGMOL was refereeing, and was directly behind the AR when there was a blatant foul 5 yards in front of him. He flagged for credibility, at which Mr R shouted at him from 30 yards away to “put that bloody flag down!”
He’s not the only one I’ve seen do this, but this was the most obviously wrong over rule I’ve seen.

Seems like it’s ball in and out only for some at this level!
 
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