A&H

Retrospectively thinking you may have made a big mistake after the game

Mada

Active Member
This morning I saw a familiar face appear on twitter and clicked through to their profile. Long story short, there was a comment about a serious injury happening during a game from a couple of months back and I realised that I refereed the game. The comment wasn't offensive, it was purely questioning my decision for not giving a yellow/red card for the tackle which led to the serious injury. I'm not fussed about the comment not do I want to make a big deal of it (it mentioned I was pleasant and also didn't do much else wrong).

I remember this incident well as the manager of the injured player was unhappy with the tackle (it was on the far side of the pitch from him in the corner) and I was right on top of it, my positioning genuinely could not have been better. My decision at the time was to pull the player to one side and have a chat with him, no cards given. In my opinion at the time, the player who committed the offence tried to win the ball and I didn't deem it to be reckless (he also made sure he was ok straight away). The injured player went off although I had no idea at the time that the injury was so severe. The tackle itself was strong but fair and I deemed that he won the ball but must have caught him on the follow through after. Red no, yellow possibly but at the time I thought a talking to was sufficient.

Having seen that tweet I feel really bad and feel like I may have made quite a bad mistake given the injury. I'm now questioning whether my foul detection is good enough and if I was too lenient given the outcome. The game remained in good spirits through until the end and I didn't give a single card for the rest of the game so it's not as if my decision not to caution the player led to a loss of control and there wasn't any retaliation.

Any thoughts?
 
The Referee Store
Refereeing is like being a doctor/Surgeon. Obviously not as important job. They occasionally don't get the outcome they want. Was it their fault? Very unlikely.

If you let those sort of thoughts get to you, you won't be able to do as good as a job you would do in the future. Learn from it but don't dwell on it.

In your case and your description, it's a 'you have to be there's but I don't see you doing much wrong. Sometimes even a fair tackle can lead to a serious injury.

Another thing to think about is if there was anything you could have done to prevent the poor tackle and the injury which is more important than if you have under punished after the fact.
 
If you want to reflect on it, try to run through the incident in your head and use the FIFA considerations to determine whether you made the right or wrong decision. This can help you in the future though, obviously, it cannot change what has happened.

That being said, and most importantly, even if you had sent the tackler off for his tackle, giving misconduct for the foul would not have stopped the poor player from being injured. The referee, contrary to what many say, does not protect the players (because he can't). The referee does, however, protect the game by ensuring that play is fair and punishing anyone who goes outside of the bounds of fairness (fair, in this case, meaning playing within the stated Laws). This is the principle responsibility of the referee. By virtue of playing a competitive sport, players always run the risk of injury; it is not our job to prevent injuries. Our job is to prevent (as best we can) and punish cheating.
 
No referee in the world gets everything 100% right and how can we? Look at the discussions we have on here. We argue / discuss things for days or even weeks after they happen. A lot of decisions are subjective and a referee has a split second to decide.

Look at the prem, these guys are top referees and sometimes get thing wrong even with VAR.

You're never going to find any referee (or even any person) who says they are right 100% of the time.

You're also a level 7, same as a lot of us. The fact you are questioning this shows that you honestly do care about refereeing and improving.

The only thing we can do is move on. I'm sure you'll have other decisions that you look back and and think about. Does that make you a bad referee? Of course not. We have to do what we always do. Get on with it then reflect and improve.

I wish you the best of luck and I'm sure as you reflect on it you will come to the decision that you truly believe. Whether you think it's the right or wrong one, only you can decide that.
 
the player who committed the offence tried to win the ball and I didn't deem it to be reckless (he also made sure he was ok straight away)
Well done for reflecting based on new information.

Overall, remember that even the most innocuous of fair tackles can cause a serious injury. And the most hideous of challenges can often be escaped without significant damage.

That said, worth considering that two of the three factors you mention above should be, at best, only peripheral to your decision making. The player trying to win the ball and then checking if the opponent was ok should have very little impact on the sanction you choose. They key factor is that, as you say, you didn't deem it to be reckless. I'd say that it's just worth considering how significantly the player 'caught him on the follow through' as this can often result in an otherwise legitimate tackle becoming Reckless or even SFP.

Good luck for the rest of your season!
 
It was what it was........the new information is not relevant to your decision at the time.
You state the tackler won the ball and caught the opponent on the follow through, a foul certainly, but only you can judge whether it was worthy of a card. You made your decision at the time. Was it right? Only you can decide...we've all been there.
 
Another thing to think about is if there was anything you could have done to prevent the poor tackle and the injury which is more important than if you have under punished after the fact.

Why would he do that?

How can a referee prevent a tackle and/or subsequent injury?

Hes there to enforce the LOTG and to arbitrate on matters arising. He may have made a mistake by misjudging the severity of the challenge but there's naff all he could have done beforehand.
 
Thanks everyone, I appreciate the comments. Obviously it was a bit of a shock seeing that this player had a nasty injury which will keep him out for some time. The pictures weren't very pleasant and the team felt aggrieved that such an injury didn't warrant at least a caution hence why they posted it on twitter. I haven't heard anything since the game so I guess they didn't complain/take it further. I genuinely believe that if I had cautioned the player then the manager would have wanted a red so I know I couldn't have made him happy. Obviously I can't do much about the tackle itself but giving a appropriate sanction based on the severity was my aim. I saw it differently to the manager.

If the tackle had been 2 footed over the top of the ball then I'd have recognized it as being dangerous and given a red, but in this case it wasn't so clear cut. He won the ball but caught the player so no one can argue with the foul I gave. I was in 2 minds about the yellow but decided the warning was sufficient at the time. A couple of players complained but not so much that I realised I had got it wrong instantly, it was the manager who thought he knew best from about 50m away. I remember the manager at the end of the game telling me I should have given a card and I risked loosing control of the match based on that decision I made. I see where he was coming from but ultimately I didn't lose control (maybe more through luck than judgement!).

Thanks once again, it's a tough learning experience but I'm still enjoying it!
 
Why would he do that?

How can a referee prevent a tackle and/or subsequent injury?

Hes there to enforce the LOTG and to arbitrate on matters arising. He may have made a mistake by misjudging the severity of the challenge but there's naff all he could have done beforehand.
I guess you have never heard of the phrase "call the first foul" before. It is unlikely the case in the OP but it would answer your question.

A big part of reflection is thinking about things you may have done differently that could have prevented an in undesired outcome. Two things to note here, it may well be that nothing could have prevented undesired outcomes, and while the referee may be able to prevent it, s/he is not the cause of it, players are.
 
Thanks everyone, I appreciate the comments. Obviously it was a bit of a shock seeing that this player had a nasty injury which will keep him out for some time. The pictures weren't very pleasant and the team felt aggrieved that such an injury didn't warrant at least a caution hence why they posted it on twitter. I haven't heard anything since the game so I guess they didn't complain/take it further. I genuinely believe that if I had cautioned the player then the manager would have wanted a red so I know I couldn't have made him happy. Obviously I can't do much about the tackle itself but giving a appropriate sanction based on the severity was my aim. I saw it differently to the manager.

If the tackle had been 2 footed over the top of the ball then I'd have recognized it as being dangerous and given a red, but in this case it wasn't so clear cut. He won the ball but caught the player so no one can argue with the foul I gave. I was in 2 minds about the yellow but decided the warning was sufficient at the time. A couple of players complained but not so much that I realised I had got it wrong instantly, it was the manager who thought he knew best from about 50m away. I remember the manager at the end of the game telling me I should have given a card and I risked loosing control of the match based on that decision I made. I see where he was coming from but ultimately I didn't lose control (maybe more through luck than judgement!).

Thanks once again, it's a tough learning experience but I'm still enjoying it!

I guess you have never heard of the phrase "call the first foul" before. It is unlikely the case in the OP but it would answer your question.

A big part of reflection is thinking about things you may have done differently that could have prevented an in undesired outcome. Two things to note here, it may well be that nothing could have prevented undesired outcomes, and while the referee may be able to prevent it, s/he is not the cause of it, players are.

The answer is that injuries don't ever warrant bookings; only misconduct warrants bookings.
 
See, the thing is, if you gave a red card, the player wouldn't have been seriously hurt. Oh, wait, that makes no sense whatsoever, as the tackle had already happened . . . .

As alluded to above, the only real question to ask yourself is if your foul bar was too low before that such that the heat of the game was increasing. That seems unlikely if you didn't think the particular play was reckless.

Players can get seriously hurt even without there being a foul at all. It's a contact sport.
 
I don't have anything to add re: this topic though, sometimes the softest of fair challenges will break someone's arm or leg or knock someone out, there's not too much you could do tbh.
 
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Are you feeling guilty as a result of the injury? Sounds like you are. You didn't do the tackle however.

It's very evident and a shame that when something like this happens, you don't hear players slating the offending player but the referee.
 
You have to separate the offence in law from the outcome.

Last season I abandoned a game for an injury that turned out to be a leg break in 3 places. At the time of the incident, I cautioned the offender and there was barely a comment from any of the injured players team.

It was only after the extent of the injury became apparent, that some of the players started asking why it wasn't a red.
 
A couple of years ago I gave only a foul and no sanctions for a challenge that ended in two broken ribs with not a single person complaining. Whats interesting is that the foul was against the defender with the broken ribs.

I wont go as far as saying that sanction is independent of outcome. It can be used as a consideration to determine the conditions mentioned in the lotg, for example the degree of disregards to safety for an opponent. You also need to understand that injuries can happen even when there is complete regards for the safety of an opponent.
 
Lots of good points already made on here. The biggest thing to remember is that sometimes, injuries happen even on a completely clean play. I had this happen to me 15 years ago. Two players connected with a very sticky match ball at the same time (the ball was one we had to use because of a sponsorship deal with the organizing committee - we all HATED how sticky the ball was). Unfortunately, one of the kids suffered a compound leg fracture. Even though I knew it was a completely clean play, it still made me almost physically sick. I had to get it out of my head quickly because I was working as an AR on the very next game.

Second, when you know (or are pretty sure) you made a mistake, do exactly what you are doing. Could you have been positioned differently? Did something happen earlier that maybe set up the issue in question? We are all going to make mistakes, but learning from them is the key. Another personal example - I missed a penalty in a 7 v 7 indoor tournament semifinal game (no side boards) because I tried to be near the goal line on a corner kick and was screened from the infraction. I asked around and realized that even though I was a solo ref, I should have been near the top of the area and not worried if an outswinging ball went out and then came back in.
 
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