Q: DOGSO - ball out of play

[steva]

The challenge of being a referee in gray areas is to know when you are relying on Law 18 (common sense) and when you are MSU (making stuff up).

There's no gray area here. DOGSO is a specific offense with specific criteria. Giving a send off for DOGSO for something that happens when the ball is out of play is MSU. Any appeal panel should overturn the decision and order the game replayed if a referee does so.

As has been stated, the only way you get to a red here is if you can seriously get to VC. (Or you can be quick to sanction dissent if there is argument about the red, but that creates other issues for you to deal with.)

There is flexibility in the laws, but there is a limit when something is black and white in the laws.

I totally agree!

 

[Big Cat]

A sending off for DOGSO CANNOT apply in these circumstances the ball was not in play! You can argue till you are blue in the face otherwise but there is nothing in the Laws to justify a sending off unless the push is Violent!

LOVING THE CAPITALS!

 

[Big Cat]

The challenge of being a referee in gray areas is to know when you are relying on Law 18 (common sense) and when you are MSU (making stuff up).

There's no gray area here. DOGSO is a specific offense with specific criteria. Giving a send off for DOGSO for something that happens when the ball is out of play is MSU. Any appeal panel should overturn the decision and order the game replayed if a referee does so.

As has been stated, the only way you get to a red here is if you can seriously get to VC. (Or you can be quick to sanction dissent if there is argument about the red, but that creates other issues for you to deal with.)

There is flexibility in the laws, but there is a limit when something is black and white in the laws.

Written word is easy to misunderstand. As i intimated earlier in the thread (at least I think I did), I'm not gonna leave the FOP to announce to my observer that the lad is in the showers for DOGSO, but I am going to deem a 'reckless' push as 'brutality' if I can swing it. The dismissal code is less important to me than the reaching the right outcome. I know the criteria for DOGSO and I know you do, so we're not really opposed to one another

 

[one]

The challenge of being a referee in gray areas is to know when you are relying on Law 18 (common sense) and when you are MSU (making stuff up).

There's no gray area here. DOGSO is a specific offense with specific criteria. Giving a send off for DOGSO for something that happens when the ball is out of play is MSU. Any appeal panel should overturn the decision and order the game replayed if a referee does so.

As has been stated, the only way you get to a red here is if you can seriously get to VC. (Or you can be quick to sanction dissent if there is argument about the red, but that creates other issues for you to deal with.)

There is flexibility in the laws, but there is a limit when something is black and white in the laws.

I think @Big Cat agrees that there can't be a send off for DOGSO. What he is saying is that the football mass think the fair outcome should be for the offender to be sent off and don't care about the reason. So "it is wise" to send the offender off for VC under this circumstance due to what football expects, even though the same act would not be considered VC if it wasn't denying an OGSO.

@Big Cat I would challenge that assertion. You may use those common sense / football expects reasons on lesser impact incidents, but I would stick to the letter of the law, if there is one, for KMI's like send off's, goal and penalties.
For example for a long time triple punishment was part of the DOGSO laws against the expectations of football and fairness principles, but referees applied it as stated in the laws. A similar concept/example on when a goal was scored after an uncontested dropped ball (when a team was meant to give the ball back to the opponents). If the law needs changing, they will change it.

EDIT: Missed BC's last post because it was in a new page.

 

[Big Cat]

I think @Big Cat agrees that there can't be a send off for DOGSO. What he is saying is that the football mass think the fair outcome should be for the offender to be sent off and don't care about the reason. So "it is wise" to send the offender off for VC under this circumstance due to what football expects, even though the same act would not be considered VC if it wasn't denying an OGSO.

@Big Cat I would challenge that assertion. You may use those common sense / football expects reasons on lesser impact incidents, but I would stick to the letter of the law, if there is one, for KMI's like send off's, goal and penalties.
For example for a long time triple punishment was part of the DOGSO laws against the expectations of football and fairness principles, but referees applied it as stated in the laws. A similar concept/example on when a goal was scored after an uncontested dropped ball (when a team was meant to give the ball back to the opponents). If the law needs changing, they will change it.

EDIT: Missed BC's last post because it was in a new page.

It would rile me if an obvious goal was denied yet the offender would be allowed to stay on the pitch just because the words 'ball in play' were an oversight in the book. I don't really agree with the DOGSO guidelines, but that's another story
As a copper with a criminal in custody, if I couldn't have him on one crime, I'd scrutinise all other avenues for a charge before releasing the toerag

 

[one]

As a copper with a criminal in custody, if I couldn't have him on one crime, I'd scrutinise all other avenues for a charge before releasing the toerag

Good analogy. So in the OP we know it's not VC but we are putting it under that because of DOGSO.

In your analogy, If you can't get him for theft, would you stick a charge for murder if you know he didn't actually commit murder? (You get a lot more for VC than DOGSO)
Or would you charge him for another theft you know you can get him for but you know he didn't commit?

 

[Big Cat]

You get a lot more for VC than DOGSO

I hadn't thought of that. Typically, it's 1 game for DOGSO and 3 for VC
That buggers my thinking because; what was an unfair outcome for the offensive team, is now disproportionate for the perpetrator
Suppose you cant MSU as a referee after all, or you end up policing like The Sweeney

 

[bester]

As quickly free kicks can now restore obvious goal scoring oppurtunities I can where the OPs line of thinking comes from.
More than a stretch of that to get to his conclusion though.

 

[steva]

LOVING THE CAPITALS!

Whether it is written in capitals or not, the point you are attempting to make is plain wrong!

 

[Peter Grove]

It would rile me if an obvious goal was denied yet the offender would be allowed to stay on the pitch just because the words 'ball in play' were an oversight in the book.

It's not an oversight, it's a wholly logical position. No 'obvious goal' has been denied. I don't see how you can possibly say that a player standing somewhere over in the middle of the field has been denied an obvious goal (or goal scoring opportunity) while the ball was off the field, beyond the sideline and out of play. The player doesn't have the ball, we have no way of knowing if he was actually going to receive it, no way of knowing whether, if he received it, he was going to be able to control it successfully, etc, etc. Apart from anything else, we don't know if the throw was going to be made legally or with sufficient power and direction to even reach the player let alone what might have happened if it did. So how can we say the player ever actually had any opportunity, let alone an obvious one?

It's like saying that if a player was about to make a pass to a team mate, who if he received the ball, would have been in a good position to score, but the player with the ball gets fouled before he can make the pass, you're going to send off the opponent who committed the foul for serious foul play whether it was SFP or not because you think that if the player had made the pass, his team mate would likely have had an OGSO.

I don't believe any referee should even consider calling an imaginary SFP offence on the basis that an OGSO might potentially have occurred afterwards if a pass was successful.

In the same vein, to say you can decide before a throw in has even been taken, that a DOGSO offence has occurred, and therefore a player should be sent off, stretches the bounds of logic and the law way beyond the breaking point, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[GraemeS]

As usual, I think Peter's got it spot on. The "O" in DOGSO is vitally important and the way we're taught to interprate that (likelihood of gaining control etc) means it can't be applied here.

Additionally, why stretch to make this fit an offence it doesn't really fit when there's one that literally describes what happened here - delaying the restart. Just because it's only a yellow card and you have some sense in yur head that it should be red, doesn't justify making up laws. I'm sure I've told the story before of the match I had where the GK came running out to the sidelines to clear the ball? He got there first, tapped it out of play, then realised he was 40+ yards off his line with an opponent only a few yards away looking to take a quick throw - so booted the ball over the fence into the next field. Yellow card was issued, accepted by both sides and the only complaint was that I then felt obliged to let the GK get back before restarting having booked him roughly where the offence took place.

 

[Big Cat]

It's not an oversight, it's a wholly logical position. No 'obvious goal' has been denied. I don't see how you can possibly say that a player standing somewhere over in the middle of the field has been denied an obvious goal (or goal scoring opportunity) while the ball was off the field, beyond the sideline and out of play. The player doesn't have the ball, we have no way of knowing if he was actually going to receive it, no way of knowing whether, if he received it, he was going to be able to control it successfully, etc, etc. Apart from anything else, we don't know if the throw was going to be made legally or with sufficient power and direction to even reach the player let alone what might have happened if it did. So how can we say the player ever actually had any opportunity, let alone an obvious one?

It's like saying that if a player was about to make a pass to a team mate, who if he received the ball, would have been in a good position to score, but the player with the ball gets fouled before he can make the pass, you're going to send off the opponent who committed the foul for serious foul play whether it was SFP or not because you think that if the player had made the pass, his team mate would likely have had an OGSO.

I don't believe any referee should even consider calling an imaginary SFP offence on the basis that an OGSO might potentially have occurred afterwards if a pass was successful.

In the same vein, to say you can decide before a throw in has even been taken, that a DOGSO offence has occurred, and therefore a player should be sent off, stretches the bounds of logic and the law way beyond the breaking point, as far as I'm concerned.

No need for the lengthy response. It feels like a good while since I read the OP, but I took it to mean that this was a highly irregular incident prompting an speculative debate. None of us were there, so it's all pie in the sky and nothing on the subject should be taken so literally

 

[Big Cat]

As usual, I think Peter's got it spot on. The "O" in DOGSO is vitally important and the way we're taught to interprate that (likelihood of gaining control etc) means it can't be applied here.

Additionally, why stretch to make this fit an offence it doesn't really fit when there's one that literally describes what happened here - delaying the restart. Just because it's only a yellow card and you have some sense in yur head that it should be red, doesn't justify making up laws. I'm sure I've told the story before of the match I had where the GK came running out to the sidelines to clear the ball? He got there first, tapped it out of play, then realised he was 40+ yards off his line with an opponent only a few yards away looking to take a quick throw - so booted the ball over the fence into the next field. Yellow card was issued, accepted by both sides and the only complaint was that I then felt obliged to let the GK get back before restarting having booked him roughly where the offence took place.

Ditto, I was merely speculating that anything orange would be red in the circumstances

 

[Big Cat]

Whether it is written in capitals or not, the point you are attempting to make is plain wrong!

Welcome the forum, Caps Lock on or not. Good to see you're so black & white. At times that will put you in good stead as a ref, at others it won't

 

[Goldfish]

Hi
Is the answer not the simple part of Law 12 when it states "" by an offence punishable by a free kick (unless as outlined below)""
There is no offence here punished by a free kick not even an IDFK as the ball is not in play so it can only be misconduct which is a caution. It cannot be a red card unless it is considered violent conduct. I doubt pushing to the ground would be VC unless excessive force or a trike was involved.

 

[Big Cat]

pushing to the ground

This would be Violent Conduct if taken literally, unless the player went down like a sack of praties (which is almost certainly the case in football)

 

[Kent Ref]

What if in this scenario the attacker has released the ball and it's heading towards the second attacker and a defending player deliberately handles the ball to stop it getting to the attacker? Red DOGSO?

 

[JamesL]

What if in this scenario the attacker has released the ball and it's heading towards the second attacker and a defending player deliberately handles the ball to stop it getting to the attacker? Red DOGSO?

The questions you have to ask yourself is, was the ball in play? Was an obvious goal scoring opportunity denied?
Consider, distance from goal, direction of play, number and location of defenders and control of the ball OR likelihood of gaining possession of the ball.
In your scenario, it could be DOGSO, it might not be depending on the above criterion.

 

[one]

Lets look at what exactly law 12 says:

Sending-off offences
A player, substitute or substituted player who commits any of the following offences is sent off:

• denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent whose overall movement is towards the offender’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick (unless as outlined below).

The following must be considered:

• distance between the offence and the goal
• general direction of the play
• likelihood of keeping or gaining control of the ball
• location and number of defenders

So we have two sets of conditions here, the first set from the first quote are 'criteria'. They must be true for the sending off (or cuationable) offence to occur. The next set from the second quote are 'considerations'.

So lets look at the criteria (what must be true). There are a number of them:

1. Opponent must be preset who has an overall movement towards goal (ie a 'back-pass' offence without an opponent present can't be a DOGSO offence)
2. An offence must be committed
3. The punishment for the offence above must be a free kick
4. A goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity must be denied (intentional listed this last )

Now the considerations only apply to criterion 4 listed above. They are guidelines for the referee when thinking about criterion 4. How the referee applies these considerations depend on the circumstances.

As a side-note, ball being in play is not a direct criterion but a byproduct of criterion 3. You can not award a free kick for an offence if the ball is out of play.

 

[socal lurker]

1. Opponent must be preset who has an overall movement towards goal (ie a 'back-pass' offence without an opponent present can't be a DOGSO offence

Agree on th concept, but not the best example, as a so called back pass can never be DOGSO, as a GK handling the ball can never be misconduct. IFAB made this more clear in the new Laws:

“If the goalkeeper handles the ball inside their penalty area when not permitted to do so, an indirect free kick is awarded but there is no disciplinary sanction.” (Pg 105)