The Ref Stop

Shouting "mine" or "my ball"

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Farncombe Pete

New Member
What is best practice when players shout "mine" or "my ball"? I think the laws of the game mean that "verbally distracting an opponent during play" is an offence. Back when I was playing (a long time ago), we were told never to say mine or my ball, but instead to use our name. This seems to have changed now and I hear a lot of mine or my ball. Strictly speaking, it's only an offence if it distracts the opponent - but how do we asses that?

Any advice on this one?
 
The Ref Stop
A common myth perpetuated by some referees.

You've touched on it. It's not what is said but is the opponent verbally distracted. Does the shout distract them from what they are doing? Is it intended to deceive them to do something else.

It's not an offence I would to looking for. When it happens it will be doing a merry jig and you'll be hard pressed to miss it
 
It can only be an offence if it does distract an opponent, so nothing inherently wrong with saying mine.

If you penalise its an indirect free kick and has to be a yellow card fir the offender
 
More experienced or higher level refs will express this better/more accurately but you're already there pretty much - it's only an offence if it's meant to distract the opponent. It's generally fairly obvious to judge when it's more than just a shout of "mine", though I have come across one or two players in Dog & Duck football who think they're being clever by screaming "mine" when genuinely going for the ball. In three seasons I've blown for this only once or twice, and that was when a player was shouting "mine" when nowhere near/no chance to challenge for the ball.
 
I actually issued an IDFK and a caution in a step 4 game for this the other week and it's the first time I've ever called it an offence in my refereeing career (despite many a shout of 'ref he said leave it' in Sunday league).
A player was standing a couple of yards behind their opponent as they were waiting to control the ball and then screaming 'man on' at the top of their voice at the point where they tried to control it, clearly and obviously intended to deliberately distract them.
 
JamesL said:
A common myth perpetuated by some referees.

You've touched on it. It's not what is said but is the opponent verbally distracted. Does the shout distract them from what they are doing? Is it intended to deceive them to do something else.

It's not an offence I would to looking for. When it happens it will be doing a merry jig and you'll be hard pressed to miss it
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I was coached this from being a very young kid and I never questioned when this was penalised in any game I played in, even when i was in my 30s. Only when I took up the whistle did I actually learn the law.
 
The Gump said:
More experienced or higher level refs will express this better/more accurately but you're already there pretty much - it's only an offence if it's meant to distract the opponent
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Not strictly true (pedant head on -sorry!).
The LOTG make no mention of intent or deliberation. All the player has to do is verbally distract an opponent, whether done deliberately or not.
As the ref (or AR) it's your call as to whether this offence took place or not and yes, when done intentionally it's normally obvious but doesn't have to be ... ;)
 
Kes said:
Not strictly true (pedant head on -sorry!).
The LOTG make no mention of intent or deliberation. All the player has to do is verbally distract an opponent, whether done deliberately or not.
As the ref (or AR) it's your call as to whether this offence took place or not and yes, when done intentionally it's normally obvious but doesn't have to be ... ;)
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arguably true, but I’m hard pressed to envision a real world scenario in which I’m going to call this that doesn’t involve I’ll intent. This is a form of USB. If it’s not something done deliberately, it’s hard to call it an unsporting act. I mean, I suppose when a player screams in pain because his Achilles tendon snaps you could card him if an opponent seems distracted, but . . .
 
socal lurker said:
arguably true, but I’m hard pressed to envision a real world scenario in which I’m going to call this that doesn’t involve I’ll intent. This is a form of USB. If it’s not something done deliberately, it’s hard to call it an unsporting act. I mean, I suppose when a player screams in pain because his Achilles tendon snaps you could card him if an opponent seems distracted, but . . .
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And by the same token, if a player claims to you that they were distracted by an opponent's words or noise - who are you to say that they weren't? ;)
 
Kes said:
Not strictly true (pedant head on -sorry!).
The LOTG make no mention of intent or deliberation. All the player has to do is verbally distract an opponent, whether done deliberately or not.
As the ref (or AR) it's your call as to whether this offence took place or not and yes, when done intentionally it's normally obvious but doesn't have to be ... ;)
Click to expand...
Absolutely take the point - I work in sporting regulation so totally understand the need for accuracy when referring to laws and rules and my mistake to suggest the wording was in the LOTG.
 
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The game I had today was a chorus of "leave it" and "mine"

Interestingly I didn't have to stop the game for it.

It feels like it is becoming the "accepted" language for youth players and they clearly all have amazing recognition of their teammates and opposition voices.
 
When I was an RLO for my local youth league, the league put up signs around the site (we had a site of 8 or so pitches) to say that it’s a league rule than anything other than putting a name on it would result in a free kick.

They were taken down fairly sharply once I joined the committee
 
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