A&H

Mike Dean managing a Kick Off

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GraemeS

GraemeS

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Level 5 Referee
Has anyone seen this in the Birmingham derby at the weekend?

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...ck-thinking-in-rare-birmingham-derby-incident

I'm not sure how I feel about this. He's clearly made the decision that crowd safety is a higher priority than applying the LOTG in a balanced manner and has been praised for doing this, but I'm not totally sure he should be telling one team to do something to nullify a competitive advantage the other team would otherwise have gained?
 
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Sure, but there's something very strange about the way he told the player repeatedly to get back in the opponents half? Trying to avoid taking the blame for not letting them kick off quickly?
 
yes it does look strange there was no need for it really i suppose... he'd be perfectly within his rights to bring the kick back for several reasons though.
the bottle on the FOP, the fact that players were still celebrating and not ready to start, and the fact that he hadnt signalled a restart.
spirit of the game comes into play if Villa are blatantly not ready .... odd one
 
It doesn't say anywhere in the laws that you should make sure everyone is ready before a restart in play. At the start of each half yes, but not after a goal/foul/throw/corner. Dean also had presence of mind to make sure he was in centre circle too to get the less than 9.15 in there to- good stuff. The fall out of Brum kicking off whilst Villa were still celebrating could have turned ugly. The prerequisite for starting the game is that all players are in their own half and oppo is required distance away. Dean would have had no justification for not starting had he not taken the actions he did.
 
I've never heard of a referee ordering a player to delay the restart, let alone be praised by the RA for doing it. Crowd safety or game management is no excuse when Dean's action provoked players from the opposition to start pushing the player who (apparently) he'd told to go into their half. Then he himself delays the restart by going to remove a bottle that anyone nearer could have been asked to remove; very convenient.

As to what he should/could have done I'm reminded of when Clattenburg booked Adebayor for excessive celebration after scoring for City v Arsenal, then changed it to "delaying the restart" - when it was the fastest any scorer had got back in his own half - so the FA could charge Adebayor with improper conduct. (For new readers, part of the history of the antipathy of City fans to Mr C.) On that basis, the scorer (and maybe all bar one of the Villa team) could have been booked for excessive celebration or delaying the restart.
 
The referee is in a no win situation here.

There was a video posted on here some time ago where players went off to the side of the pitch celebrating their goal and because they were inside their own half, the referee allowed play to restart whilst they were still celebrating...

Can imagine the headlines if an English referee did allow play to restart in that kind of situation, with most of them being fairly negative!
 
One of the L4 theory questions is around the 'ready for restart' issues. The only people who need to be ready are the officials.....

Off for pre match briefings now, good luck to one and all this afternoon, wherever your travels take you.
 
This scenario has been discussed on here before - but no reason not to wait for both teams to be ready at a KO.
The intent is a fairly neutral restart. It isn't a quick free kick where it's about restoring advantage to the attack so catching the other team off.
I don't think Dean's approach was necessary - it clearly hasn't reduced the controversy here. But I think the right decision was made.
Just because the KO requires all players to be in their own half it doesn't mean you're required to restart as soon as this happens.
Just because the referee CAN restart then it doesn't mean he SHOULD.
 
For me it's not the referees job to help either team. While they can do that to delay the restart the referee should not be encouraging it. He at that moment influenced the play and in effect stopped them scoring. This would become a slippery slope and the ref would have to start to interfere at different times. What about take a quick free kick, when the players are complaining about a decision ? should he stop that to make sure everyone is ready ?
 
bloovee said:
I've never heard of a referee ordering a player to delay the restart, let alone be praised by the RA for doing it. Crowd safety or game management is no excuse when Dean's action provoked players from the opposition to start pushing the player who (apparently) he'd told to go into their half. Then he himself delays the restart by going to remove a bottle that anyone nearer could have been asked to remove; very convenient.

As to what he should/could have done I'm reminded of when Clattenburg booked Adebayor for excessive celebration after scoring for City v Arsenal, then changed it to "delaying the restart" - when it was the fastest any scorer had got back in his own half - so the FA could charge Adebayor with improper conduct. (For new readers, part of the history of the antipathy of City fans to Mr C.) On that basis, the scorer (and maybe all bar one of the Villa team) could have been booked for excessive celebration or delaying the restart.
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:yawn:

Absolutely the right thing done by MD - for me this is exactly the sort of thing covered by the 'spirit of the game'.
 
markieg said:
For me it's not the referees job to help either team. While they can do that to delay the restart the referee should not be encouraging it. He at that moment influenced the play and in effect stopped them scoring. This would become a slippery slope and the ref would have to start to interfere at different times. What about take a quick free kick, when the players are complaining about a decision ? should he stop that to make sure everyone is ready ?
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Bold is my emphasis.
But that's my point. This isn't a free kick - the intent of the KO isn't about giving a team an attack. It's a relatively neutral way of starting/restarting the match. Think about the spirit of the game here - the intent of the law.

A free kick is, among other things, an attempt to restore a team's beneficial opportunity lost due to a foul. A quick free kick typically is as close to the original field position of the players as you can get - it doesn't disadvantage the defence; rather, it is one option to minimise the disadvantage to the attack. After all, the defence didn't have 5 people in a wall and all their other defenders nicely positioning in the PA before the foul, did they? FK is restoring the advantage.

A KO is nothing like that. So there's no reason to permit a team to take it quickly.

Thus, there's no slippery slope at all.
 
My concern about this incident - and the reason I posted it - is that although I don't think there's any reason he has to have allowed a quick kick-off, I'm not sure instructing a player to stand in the wrong half is a good way to go about it.

As you can see in the video, the opposition quickly cottoned on to what was happening and started pushing the player back into his own half, think that they would then be allowed to kick off quickly. That could have escalated to a full-on fight, which could have required yellow or red cards to defuse and would have been 100% caused by Mike Dean in that situation. Even as it things were, he's raised tempers in what would already have been a volatile derby match. That's why this doesn't feel like praiseworthy refereeing to me.

The correct thing to do would have been to calmly tell the conceding side that KO would not happen until both sides are ready - and if necessary, reinforce the point that you were waiting for the scoring side to be ready by considering a caution for delaying the restart/excessive celebration. Top level referees should be taking ownership of their decisions, not manipulating players into taking the blame for their actions.
 
The point here is that without the actions MD took he would have had no reason in law not to restart the game.
 
CapnBloodbeard said:
Bold is my emphasis.
But that's my point. This isn't a free kick - the intent of the KO isn't about giving a team an attack. It's a relatively neutral way of starting/restarting the match. Think about the spirit of the game here - the intent of the law.

A free kick is, among other things, an attempt to restore a team's beneficial opportunity lost due to a foul. A quick free kick typically is as close to the original field position of the players as you can get - it doesn't disadvantage the defence; rather, it is one option to minimise the disadvantage to the attack. After all, the defence didn't have 5 people in a wall and all their other defenders nicely positioning in the PA before the foul, did they? FK is restoring the advantage.

A KO is nothing like that. So there's no reason to permit a team to take it quickly.

Thus, there's no slippery slope at all.
Click to expand...

Spirit of the game ?? what he did there was technically cheating and was delaying the restart of play. Teams have scored directly from Kick off. The ref is there to make sure there is fair play, telling a player to stand in the other half to delay play is not fair play.
 
You're missing the point of the reasoning for doing this though. It's not about preventing an advantageous situation from arising for one team, or allowing an advantage to be accrued by the other.

It's about match control, nothing else. And fair play to him for recognising what could be a difficult situation arising from it very quickly.

This is no different than 'managing' a situation when you need to cool a game down. Player gone down with an injury when the temperature of the game has risen? I'll drag it out as long as I can without it becoming an issue.

There are many other examples that could be provided of a similar thing to maintain match control, but from our point of view that's key.

Personally I'd have gone about it a different way, but the end result would have been the same - they kick off when Villa are back in position. (Assuming I saw the situation developing first of course)
 
RustyRef said:
Of course he would, the referee decides when player can be restarted not the players.
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Exactly. Which is why making a player take the blame for something the referee could easily take responsibility for is deliberately causing friction between players and strikes me as less than ideal.
 
Paul March said:
The point here is that without the actions MD took he would have had no reason in law not to restart the game.
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No, but he's not required to start the game the moment the teams are in their half either.

markieg said:
Spirit of the game ?? what he did there was technically cheating and was delaying the restart of play. Teams have scored directly from Kick off. The ref is there to make sure there is fair play, telling a player to stand in the other half to delay play is not fair play.
Click to expand...

Well, like Graeme, it wasn't necessary that he manufacture a reason to delay it when he has every right to choose to delay it.
 
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