New Law - "misconduct...against...match official – a direct free kick or penalty kick"

[GraemeS]

But it doesn't specify DFK offence against a match official. It simply states 'offence against a match official'. no list is provided. Given a foul can only occur against an opponent, the list of penal fouls is irrelevant here. So I'm not sure what 'list' you're referring to.

It's perfectly possible to push, charge, spit at etc. a referee, so I think it's totally fair to apply at least a large potion of that list to referees - especially given that the change in the second section of the original post now clarifies that they apply to referees too.

 

[AlexF]

And simply based on this conversation, there's a very good REASON why IFAB put together a series of FAQs and released them as an additional document.

You have to remember that we, as referees, don't just use the Laws, but we also use the added information around them, which, in this case, includes the "Change of Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct: denial of a obvious goal-scoring opportunity" presentation and the FAQs.

Read them, learn them, and be happy.

 

[Padfoot]

And simply based on this conversation, there's a very good REASON why IFAB put together a series of FAQs and released them as an additional document.

You have to remember that we, as referees, don't just use the Laws, but we also use the added information around them, which, in this case, includes the "Change of Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct: denial of a obvious goal-scoring opportunity" presentation and the FAQs.

Read them, learn them, and be happy.

And keep giving DFK's for offences against match officials rather than pandering to the weak willed elite and reinforcing the message that dissent is just 'part of the game'.

In short, grow a pair and do your colleagues, and the game, a favour.

 

[GraemeS]

And keep giving DFK's for offences against match officials rather than pandering to the weak willed elite and reinforcing the message that dissent is just 'part of the game'.

In short, grow a pair and do your colleagues, and the game, a favour.

Wow, shocked to see that said.

The duty of the referee is to enforce the LOTG. We can argue about the interpretation of the law, but if you're going off on some crusade giving DFK's and PK's for dissent knowing that's not what the laws state, you're both failing to do your job properly and, despite what you might think, doing next week's referee a disservice.

 

[Padfoot]

Wow, shocked to see that said.

The duty of the referee is to enforce the LOTG. We can argue about the interpretation of the law, but if you're going off on some crusade giving DFK's and PK's for dissent knowing that's not what the laws state, you're both failing to do your job properly and, despite what you might think, doing next week's referee a disservice.

The law states that offences against match officials will result in a DFK or PK.....

If you wish to pander to the belief that dissent isn't such an offence, then it is you who is not doing the job properly and letting your colleagues down.
Or maybe you believe that it is acceptable for colleagues to be abused?

 

[ASM]

The point is @Padfoot there is a written document from the game's lawmakers that categorically states that if the game is stopped to caution a player for dissent the correct restart is an IDFK!

That's the end of the matter, rightly or wrongly. To wilfully misapply the laws is often slated on here as something expected of "last week's ref." Thank you for confirming your membership card for this illustrious group of 'colleagues'.

 

[Padfoot]

The point is @Padfoot there is a written document from the game's lawmakers that categorically states that if the game is stopped to caution a player for dissent the correct restart is an IDFK!

That's the end of the matter, rightly or wrongly. To wilfully misapply the laws is often slated on here as something expected of "last week's ref." Thank you for confirming your membership card for this illustrious group of 'colleagues'.

It's not misapplying the laws.....its applying them EXACTLY as they are written.

The FAQ advice is nonsensical and, as such, not worthy of consideration. I have emailed IFAB to point this out, and asked them to explain how dissent or offinabus directed at a match official is not an 'offence against a match official'.

It's shame that instead of showing some testicular fortitude and using the new wording to improve conditions for colleagues to operate in, some prefer to resort to petty insults and point scoring.
Clearly IFAB do not value referees when they specifically ensure that the quintessential offence against them is treated as a mere technical offence.
What they are saying is that gobbing off at a referee is not as serious as simply tripping an opponent.......

 

[Brian Hamilton]

The point is @Padfoot there is a written document from the game's lawmakers that categorically states that if the game is stopped to caution a player for dissent the correct restart is an IDFK!

That's the end of the matter, rightly or wrongly. To wilfully misapply the laws is often slated on here as something expected of "last week's ref." Thank you for confirming your membership card for this illustrious group of 'colleagues'.

Happy to help support @ASM on this point. Under Law 12 it says...
Q6: Why is an offence against someone who is not an opponent now a direct free kick? Does this include dissent?
If, for example, a player strikes a team-mate, substitute, team official or, perhaps even worse, a match official this is serious but only restarting with an IDFK suggested that the offence was not serious so it is now a direct free kick for any offence (directly) against anyone (except an opponent). This does not include dissent (see below)
Q6: What is the restart of the referee stops play for dissent?
If the referee stops play to penalise a player for dissent, the restart is an IDFK.

This continues the theme in other parts of the Laws where physical contact (or attempted physical contact) results in the award of a DFK but a "technical" offence, not involving physical contact (or attempted), results in the award of an IDFK.

Full document here
http://www.refchat.co.uk/threads/revision-of-the-laws-of-the-game-questions-and-answers.7980/

 

[RustyRef]

I think people are over complicating this. I don't see dissent as necessarily an offence committed against the referee. Yes, more often than not it might be, but what about when the player smashes the ball against the advertising hoardings or bounces the ball down in frustration? Is this really an offence committed against the referee, I would argue not and acts of dissent should still be an IDFK.

That said I do accept the laws could have been worded better.

 

[Padfoot]

I think people are over complicating this. I don't see dissent as necessarily an offence committed against the referee. Yes, more often than not it might be, but what about when the player smashes the ball against the advertising hoardings or bounces the ball down in frustration? Is this really an offence committed against the referee, I would argue not and acts of dissent should still be an IDFK.

That said I do accept the laws could have been worded better.

Is it not an act of dissent against your decision? And by extension against you as a match official?
Of course it is....to suggest otherwise is totally untenable.

It's a dawning of realisation over what they had done that led to the no doubt hasty inclusion of said FAQ to placate the professional game and allow elite colleagues to continue to ignore dissent.

The way the tame lapdogs in here roll over and take it is embarrassing.

 

[Brian Hamilton]

Is it not an act of dissent against your decision? And by extension against you as a match official?
Of course it is....to suggest otherwise is totally untenable.

It's a dawning of realisation over what they had done that led to the no doubt hasty inclusion of said FAQ to placate the professional game and allow elite colleagues to continue to ignore dissent.

The way the tame lapdogs in here roll over and take it is embarrassing.

It actually borrows from the way other sports, such as Rugby Union (that bastion of respect for match officials) treat what they regard as "technical" offences. They are sanctioned by the lesser punishment, which in their case is a free kick. That is a restart from which the team taking the kick cannot score directly, just like an IDFK.

To be honest @Padfoot I think that it is only a matter of time before the sanction for dissent becomes a DFK, but only outside the penalty area. I think the current position is a halfway house designed to edge towards the referee nirvana of properly punishing dissent by word or action with a DFK. There will probably be another revision in a year or so and this will come in.

No, I'm not joking. I think it is coming.

 

[GraemeS]

Is it not an act of dissent against your decision? And by extension against you as a match official?
Of course it is....to suggest otherwise is totally untenable.

It's a dawning of realisation over what they had done that led to the no doubt hasty inclusion of said FAQ to placate the professional game and allow elite colleagues to continue to ignore dissent.

The way the tame lapdogs in here roll over and take it is embarrassing.

Paranoid much?

Like it or not, the correct decision for dissent at the moment is considered to be a IFK. If you want to have a separate discussion regarding if that should be changed or not, you're welcome to start a new thread. But this thread is asking what the correct decision is under the current interpretation - and as conclusively argued above, the answer is IFK.

If you give anything else, you're both WRONG, and making the job of the referee harder next week when he applies the correct punishment and players heckles go up because they feel like they're being treated inconsistently.

 

[Padfoot]

Paranoid much?

Like it or not, the correct decision for dissent at the moment is considered to be a IFK. If you want to have a separate discussion regarding if that should be changed or not, you're welcome to start a new thread. But this thread is asking what the correct decision is under the current interpretation - and as conclusively argued above, the answer is IFK.

If you give anything else, you're both WRONG, and making the job of the referee harder next week when he applies the correct punishment and players heckles go up because they feel like they're being treated inconsistently.

Players won't moan about it.....most of them struggle to walk upright let alone read so no real danger of them ever properly learning the LOTG!

If you want to be soft on player abuse....i'll carry on using the law as written to punish it properly. If the FA or anyone else has a problem with my interpretation of the law I am sure they will invite me to have a chat about it.......I look forward to them explaining how a player screaming at a referee berating their decision is not an offence against a match official......and is less serious than a simple shirt pull on the halfway line which attracts a harsher sanction.

And as for making next weeks refs job harder.....actually completely the opposite. By adopting a tougher line on dissent it will make their job easier......unless you are suggesting that referee is going to be disappointed by the lack of abuse they might receive?

 

[GraemeS]

Players won't moan about it.....most of them struggle to walk upright let alone read so no real danger of them ever properly learning the LOTG!

If you want to be soft on player abuse....i'll carry on using the law as written to punish it properly. If the FA or anyone else has a problem with my interpretation of the law I am sure they will invite me to have a chat about it.......I look forward to them explaining how a player screaming at a referee berating their decision is not an offence against a match official......and is less serious than a simple shirt pull on the halfway line which attracts a harsher sanction.

And as for making next weeks refs job harder.....actually completely the opposite. By adopting a tougher line on dissent it will make their job easier......unless you are suggesting that referee is going to be disappointed by the lack of abuse they might receive?

Of course not. But if a team has a PK given against them for dissent one week and then is only awarded an IFK for a similar offence the following week, it will have been the incorrect application of law from the first referee (a classic case of "last week's ref" not knowing the laws) that causes the flare up. You're probably accurate in saying that most players won't spot a single wrong isolated decision with regards to a niche case like this - but we all know one thing players are quick to pick up on is inconsistency.

It must have sunk in by now that your interpretation of the law is currently considered wrong? As outlined in the FAQ Brian has posted, there is a right and wrong answer, as defined by the people that write the LOTG. And yet you seem to still be saying that you would go out on the pitch, knowingly apply the law incorrectly and feel like you're doing the world of refereeing a service?!

I'm not for a second suggesting you go out and be "soft" - I'm suggesting you go out and do your best to be fair and correct.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

It's perfectly possible to push, charge, spit at etc. a referee, so I think it's totally fair to apply at least a large potion of that list to referees - especially given that the change in the second section of the original post now clarifies that they apply to referees too.

Why would you apply it to referees?
By definition a foul can only occur against an opponent. Thus, everything in that list is irrelevant against a referee. You still consider any action a yellow/red card offence, but you're not running it against the list of penal fouls.
So the clause that states it's a DFK for any offence against a keeper doesn't state nor even hint that it's referring to the 10 penal "fouls" (inverted commas given it isn't a foul). An offence includes more than penal fouls.

while IFAB have corrected it, it's still utterly embarrassing how poorly the LOTG is written. A lot of people picked this up immediately - didn't anybody read it before publishing it?
and not everybody will see the additional documents released by IFAB, so it's going to cause a problem. It's going to be hard enough having referees knowing the new laws, let alone every time IFAB said 'hey, by the way, we completely stuffed up that law, here's what we meant to say"

 

[GraemeS]

Why would you apply it to referees?
By definition a foul can only occur against an opponent. Thus, everything in that list is irrelevant against a referee. You still consider any action a yellow/red card offence, but you're not running it against the list of penal fouls.
So the clause that states it's a DFK for any offence against a keeper doesn't state nor even hint that it's referring to the 10 penal "fouls" (inverted commas given it isn't a foul). An offence includes more than penal fouls.

while IFAB have corrected it, it's still utterly embarrassing how poorly the LOTG is written. A lot of people picked this up immediately - didn't anybody read it before publishing it?
and not everybody will see the additional documents released by IFAB, so it's going to cause a problem. It's going to be hard enough having referees knowing the new laws, let alone every time IFAB said 'hey, by the way, we completely stuffed up that law, here's what we meant to say"

All I'm saying is that what you're suggesting (giving a DFK for an offence that isn't on the list of DFK offences) is less intuitive than simply giving a DFK for the DFK offences and using the "any other offence" clause in the IFK list to give an IFK for dissent - or anything else that isn't explicitly covered by section 12.1. Anything else seems to be deliberately overcomplicating matters to me.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

I would argue that trying to drag other parts of the law that are irrelevant is overcomplicating the matter. "Any offence against a match official is a DFK". There's absolutely nothing simpler than that. Trying to make assumptions that it 'actually means the penal fouls which, despite not actually being fouls in this situation are still somehow applicable, so we really should have just copied and pasted those 10 offences and removed the word 'foul' " is far more complicated than 'was it an offence against a match official? Then it's a DFK"

 

[shorty]

There is no contradiction in the body of the Laws. It states:

An indirect free kick is awarded if a player:
...

• commits any other offence, not mentioned in the Laws, for which play is stopped to caution or send off a player

Cautionable offences
A player is cautioned if guilty of:
...

• dissent by word or action

If the ball is in play and a player commits an offence inside the field of play against:
...

• a team-mate, substitute, substituted player, team official or a match official – a direct free kick or penalty kick

That's completely clear to me. Dissent is a cautionable offence, committed against a match official. The restart of play for any cautionable offence is an indirect free kick if the restart for this offence is not mentioned elsewhere in the Laws. However, the restart is mentioned elsewhere in the Laws. In fact, in the same Law, it states that any offence against a match official while the ball is in play is a direct free kick or penalty kick.

However, the Q&A directly contradicts that advice. It states that the restart is an IDFK for dissent / offensive, insulting, abusive language.

This is not a clarification, it is a contradiction. Technically speaking, referees are entirely within their rights to award a direct free kick / penalty kick, and players are entirely within their rights to expect only an indirect free kick.

That's your prerogative however given your history of critical posts about referees picking and choosing the application of the laws I might be as bold as to suggest that it displays hypocrasy of highest order.

I certainly don't agree with Padfoot's tone in some of the posts I've read, but I have to call out that ridiculous personal attack. This has absolutely zero to do with referees choosing to ignore the Laws, and everything with referees being presented with two contradictory prescribed restarts for the same offence. To claim that someone is in dereliction of their duty by awarding either a direct free kick / penalty kick or indirect free kick when both are prescribed restarts for this offence is ridiculous.

Your vitriol should instead be aimed at the IFAB team. They failed to release the Laws with enough time for them to be reviewed and have such errors highlighted (and corrected) before a final version was released.

 

[richard ramjane]

well, i was firmly in the DFK camp until i read the Q&A... if they can be that clear in the Q&A why not just insert those words directly into the laws? that would be ever so helpful, or maybe thats too easy...
i shall now spend some of today going through the document that @Brian Hamilton kindly posted

 

[shorty]

That document is also available at the end of each Law on the IFAB website if you find viewing in a browser easier than viewing a PDF.

Edit: the section we've been talking about in this thread is located here.