Player returning to the field of play

[Dino Ref]

Hi guys, I'm a little confused about this and am looking for some clarification.

Under what circumstances does a player have to leave the field of play and be waved back on by the referee and under what circumstances can he simply get up and remain, without the need to go off.

Thanks.

 

[one]

Are you asking in terms of injuries or correcting their playing equipment? Or both?

 

[Dino Ref]

Are you asking in terms of injuries or correcting their playing equipment? Or both?

Mainly injuries but now you mention equipment both.

 

[one]

For unauthorised or dangerous/unsafe equipment (or lack of), the must leave the field of play. Unless they have 'fixed it' before you ask them to leave to correct it. You or your assistant must check if it has been fixed before you can wave them back on which can happen during play.

For injuries, injured players can be assessed but not treated on the field. If they are not assessed/attended then no need to leave the filed. If they are assessed then they have to leave the field except:
- goal keepers
- the injury was as a result of a foul which was sanctioned but only if assesment is quick
- goalkeeper and another player collide and need attention
- severe injuries
- players from same team collided and need attention
- the restart is a penalty kick and the injured player wants to take it.

Injured player can only return after the restart and with the referee's permission. Law 5 covers this in details.

 

[Dino Ref]

For unauthorised or dangerous/unsafe equipment (or lack of), the must leave the field of play. Unless they have 'fixed it' before you ask them to leave to correct it. You or your assistant must check if it has been fixed before you can wave them back on which can happen during play.

For injuries, injured players can be assessed but not treated on the field. If they are not assessed/attended then no need to leave the filed. If they are assessed then they have to leave the field except:
- goal keepers
- the injury was as a result of a foul which was sanctioned but only if assesment is quick
- goalkeeper and another player collide and need attention
- severe injuries
- players from same team collided and need attention
- the restart is a penalty kick and the injured player wants to take it.

Injured player can only return after the restart and with the referee's permission. Law 5 covers this in details.

Thanks.

 

[Big Cat]

In other words, we have to order them off the FOP, merely to wave them back on immediately following unbelievably rapid first-aid

 

[one]

In other words, we have to order them off the FOP, merely to wave them back on immediately following unbelievably rapid first-aid

I actually like the authority given to the referee this way. It is at your discretion when you wave them back on. This whole process is to stop players from cheating (your pet peeve) by fainting injury. I have used this discresion to good effect to ensure there is no second occurrence of a faint injury.

 

[Ben448844]

I actually like the authority given to the referee this way. It is at your discretion when you wave them back on. This whole process is to stop players from cheating (your pet peeve) by fainting injury. I have used this discresion to good effect to ensure there is no second occurrence of a faint injury.

The downside is of course that if the other team scores whilst you've waited a bit longer to wave the player 'feigning injury on, then you have a **** storm on your hands. Thats far worse than just waving him on quickly and moving on...

 

[one]

The downside is of course that if the other team scores whilst you've waited a bit longer to wave the player 'feigning injury on, then you have a **** storm on your hands. Thats far worse than just waving him on quickly and moving on...

Agreed which is why I don't recommend it to the faint hearted . I'd rather manage a sh!tstrom in return for ensuring both sides play it fair.
Edit: I must add I only use this when comp rules don't allow added time.

 

[Big Cat]

This Law has not worked out as intended. For any minor injury, or cheating, the player is invited back to the game immediately
Again, we take our lead in negating this Law from the refs on TV

 

[Ben448844]

This Law has not worked out as intended. For any minor injury, or cheating, the player is invited back to the game immediately
Again, we take our lead in negating this Law from the refs on TV

Its impossible for the on field officials to manage this scenario in a way that will please everyone. Its one of those situations where players knowingly cheat (Ive done it as a player many times, often on instruction from a manager! In a big game players take it in turns, thats just the reality. When you're in front make it a bitty game and waste as much time as you can). The officials cant win either way.

There is a solution of course to this and all time wasting issues from when the ball is not in play. A stop clock.

 

[socal lurker]

This Law has not worked out as intended. For any minor injury, or cheating, the player is invited back to the game immediately
Again, we take our lead in negating this Law from the refs on TV

It's not negating the Law--for better or worse, IFAB specifically wrote it this way, and distinguished between injuries (where player must take treatment off the field but then can come back) and equipment (which must be checked at a stoppage). If the intent was to keep the player out for a period of time, the way to do it would be to make the player wait until the next stoppage. Law 5 was this way back when it was Law 5--if the powers that be thought this was negating the intent of the Law, they've had at least five decades to fix it.

The biggest risk for refs is untimely permitting the player on when it allows the player to gain an advantage. Was it the last MWC that a ref let a player on, leaving him unmarked at midfield resulting in a transition goal?

 

[Brian Hamilton]

This Law has not worked out as intended. For any minor injury, or cheating, the player is invited back to the game immediately
Again, we take our lead in negating this Law from the refs on TV

Not quite, the instruction to return is unlikely to given when the injured player's team would benefit from an instantaneous overload from their re-entry. The referee will give the signal to return when the ball is in a safe area or out of play.

 

[Big Cat]

if the powers that be thought this was negating the intent of the Law, they've had at least five decades to fix it

Just like they turn a blind eye to the 6 second rule and so on. The point I'm making, is that in the vast majority of cases, the player is called straight back on, so the act of leaving the FOP is pointless. This is how it plays out on TV, so that's what the rest of us do

As you and @Brian Hamilton indicated, blindly inviting a player back on can have interesting consequences. I was having a blinder (in my eyes that is) in the middle one sunny afternoon, until one foot slipped on this banana skin with the other regaining balance in the crematorium (quote: Sid Waddell )

 

[socal lurker]

But I don't think it is pointless and I don't think anyone is turning a blind eye--refs are doing exactly what the Laws say. The real point of this provision is to allow the ref to get the player off the field and restart. This wasn't put in for fake injuries--it was put in more than 50 years ago when the game was different. The biggest effort I recall to really look at faking was the WC (10 years ago?) where they made players leave on a stretcher every time play was stopped or the trainer came on the field--and that didn't last.

 

[GraemeS]

This Law has not worked out as intended. For any minor injury, or cheating, the player is invited back to the game immediately
Again, we take our lead in negating this Law from the refs on TV

This law has little to do with trying to punish fake injuries. 99.9% of referees have little or no medical training and so are not entitled to decide if an injury is genuine or fake. To be honest, I've always been slightly uncomfortable with the idea that we are expected to assess if an injury is serious and requires a stoppage, or is more minor and play can continue around them - because we're not trained to make that assessment.

But anyway, the point is, for any injury we are obliged to assume that any player sat on the floor looking injured is in fact injured. So you stop play or delay the next restart, determine if they need a physio and then if so, call the physio on and ask him to move the player to the side of the pitch as soon as it is safe to do so. That's not designed as a punishment for a fake injury, it's designed to be consistently fair to all injuries (fake, minor or major) and it's designed to allow the game to continue as fast as possible.

As you rightly point out, it's fairly weak as a punitive measure - but that's because that concept was retroactively bodged into the laws at a later date. We're all open to suggestions for an improved approach, but anything you do has to bear in mind that it only takes one high-profile mistake (a referee trying to caution a player who it later turns out has a broken arm) and the idea that player safety is our top priority has gone out the window. The problem is, short of medically training every referee and introducing a provision into law that allows for the referee to stop play to carry out a medical assessment, we're limited to working on the assumption that every scream of pain is genuine. I don't quite see how we stop players exploiting that without also punishing those who, through no fault of their own, have been genuinely injured?

 

[Ben448844]

This law has little to do with trying to punish fake injuries. 99.9% of referees have little or no medical training and so are not entitled to decide if an injury is genuine or fake. To be honest, I've always been slightly uncomfortable with the idea that we are expected to assess if an injury is serious and requires a stoppage, or is more minor and play can continue around them - because we're not trained to make that assessment.

But anyway, the point is, for any injury we are obliged to assume that any player sat on the floor looking injured is in fact injured. So you stop play or delay the next restart, determine if they need a physio and then if so, call the physio on and ask him to move the player to the side of the pitch as soon as it is safe to do so. That's not designed as a punishment for a fake injury, it's designed to be consistently fair to all injuries (fake, minor or major) and it's designed to allow the game to continue as fast as possible.

As you rightly point out, it's fairly weak as a punitive measure - but that's because that concept was retroactively bodged into the laws at a later date. We're all open to suggestions for an improved approach, but anything you do has to bear in mind that it only takes one high-profile mistake (a referee trying to caution a player who it later turns out has a broken arm) and the idea that player safety is our top priority has gone out the window. The problem is, short of medically training every referee and introducing a provision into law that allows for the referee to stop play to carry out a medical assessment, we're limited to working on the assumption that every scream of pain is genuine. I don't quite see how we stop players exploiting that without also punishing those who, through no fault of their own, have been genuinely injured?

If we look to other sports for solutions, rugby is faced with the same issue and allows the physio to come on to the field to treat a player whilst the game continues, should the injury not be a head injury or look obviously severe (thats an assumption on my part). I'm assuming this will have been discussed before, but is that a potential solution?

 

[es1]

If we look to other sports for solutions, rugby is faced with the same issue and allows the physio to come on to the field to treat a player whilst the game continues, should the injury not be a head injury or look obviously severe (thats an assumption on my part). I'm assuming this will have been discussed before, but is that a potential solution?

this is an idea i'd like to see trialled to see if would work in football.

 

[GraemeS]

If we look to other sports for solutions, rugby is faced with the same issue and allows the physio to come on to the field to treat a player whilst the game continues, should the injury not be a head injury or look obviously severe (thats an assumption on my part). I'm assuming this will have been discussed before, but is that a potential solution?

Yeah, that's a good idea. I've heard it suggested before and the argument against has always been "well, football is a more dynamic sport" - ie. in rugby, you generally have a pretty good idea of where the ball's likely to go and so can stop play if you're likely to trample the injured player. Football is more up-and-down, and long switches of the ball are more common, so it's harder to predict and more risky to the physio and injured player.

However I'm fairly sure that's based in assumptions and a degree of snobbery about how dynamic and exciting football is. Would certainly be interesting to see it trialled in reality and see if that argument holds up.

 

[GraemeS]

It's also worth bringing into this discussion that football really needs to think about introducing 10 minute temporary substitutions for a head impact assessment. Almost every other major contact sport in the world has introduced some kind of process designed to encourage teams to take a player off and submit them to the appropriate tests - football insisting on failing to do so is starting to look dangerously close to negligent.