A&H

Junior/Youth Team choosing to field less players

DaveMac

DaveMac

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Level 7 Referee
Majorly one sided game, was 19-0 by half time. The team leading in the second half put out 6 players even though it was 7 a side. They had players and substitutes so they chose to do this. Do we have an obligation to make them field the right numbers if they can, or can a team make that choice?

In fairness to him it was a good gesture as otherwise the score line would have been even more horrendous than the 29-0 it ended.
 
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In 11 v 11 as long as there is at least 7 players then it doesn't matter if they have others available. I don't know what the minimum is for 7 v 7.

As they were doing it just to try and even up the game I would personally let them do it regardless.
 
A rare example of sportsmanship - the coach is to be applauded, to make up for the grief he might get off one of the parents and one or two of his team
 
Didn't a manager who's name escapes me famously pull off a player a few years ago to make his team play with 10 because he thought they weren't putting enough effort in? Possibly Italian league
 
I had a youth game where the away team only had 9 players. Home team were much higher in league than away team. Home team manager decided at the start of the game that he would play with only 9 players aswell to make it fairer to the disbelief of his assistant who thought he was mad.Result was I think 3-1 to the home team but both myself and the away team were very impressed with this true sporting gesture.
 
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I had U18 match today, away team could only field 8 players...home manager agreed to field 8 players as long as he could roll on roll off his other 3 players so they get a game, all was agreed and the game went ahead......amazingly end to end game but home team won 6-0 no Y/R.
 
There will be a competition rule which requires the clubs to field their strongest team. There will also be a rule that states the penalty for playing with fewer than the required number of players. It is your responsibility as match referee to report the facts of this matter to the league.

You make think this makes you a jobsworth but such incidents are often an indicator that a club is in trouble. This creates issues for the league and it may be that the club need some help recruiting new players to stay in existence.
 
Yes, i have submitted a report to the league about the fielding of 8 players,and i told the manager i would be doing this.
 
Brian Hamilton said:
It still needs to be reported to the league. They may decide to congratulate them for such a sporting action.
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There is no sarcasm in this post either. Nick Levett who leads youth football development for the The FA recommends teams try playing players out of position or leaving out key players to help develop the players overall skill levels.
 
Brian Hamilton said:
There will be a competition rule which requires the clubs to field their strongest team. There will also be a rule that states the penalty for playing with fewer than the required number of players. It is your responsibility as match referee to report the facts of this matter to the league.

You make think this makes you a jobsworth but such incidents are often an indicator that a club is in trouble. This creates issues for the league and it may be that the club need some help recruiting new players to stay in existence.
Click to expand...

What's their 'strongest team'? I've seen plenty of teams play better with 10 players than 11.
If the referee happens to be aware of a rule that requires them to play 11 players if they have them there, then for the sake of everything pure have a chat to the team first, don't just report them.

Unless you know there's a competition rule they've broken, there's nothing to report.
 
Brian Hamilton said:
There will be a competition rule which requires the clubs to field their strongest team. There will also be a rule that states the penalty for playing with fewer than the required number of players. It is your responsibility as match referee to report the facts of this matter to the league.

You make think this makes you a jobsworth but such incidents are often an indicator that a club is in trouble. This creates issues for the league and it may be that the club need some help recruiting new players to stay in existence.
Click to expand...
I take your point Brian and yes, the league should be informed because it works both ways. The stronger team can be praised for their sportsmanship/fair play and the weaker team can be assisted in finding new players.
However there are leagues in my neck of the woods who advise on how to deal with mismatches and they talk about withdrawing players if numbers are a mismatch (also playing you lesser lights rather than the stars). At Youth level the focus is on player development and retention and the leagues try to encourage this type of fair play.
Personally, I had a situation last season whereby the home team (1 win all season, many defeats) had 9 players turn up (one arrived about 2 minutes before KO) and they were playing a team challenging at the top (1 defeat, many wins). I explained the situation to the visiting manager and he agreed to play equal numbers. The home team scored first and for 25 minutes we had a game on. And then the floodgates opened for the away team. While I saddened but the outcome, at least I tried something within the framework of the LOTG and the league code.
 
I had a game the other week (9 v 9 - - U11s) which was similarly one sided and the LOOSING manager (loosing 5-0) took a player off because he wasn't working hard enough !
He just shouted ref sub... I thought it was strange considering he only had the bare 9 and took one of his kids off. Bizarre
 
I had a youth match where one team who where bottom of league turned up with 8 players to play a side at the top of the table. The coach of the top of the league side, let them have two of their trialists who otherwise wouldn't have got a run out, game still finished 20-0
 
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