Under 11's incident

[kumquat_s]

Very grassroots ref here but yesterday I was officiating a match for my son's Under 11's team. There was a contentious decision that had to be made and I'm wondering what decision was the correct one.

Red vs. Blue. Team Blue has a corner. Corner is swung into the box. Defender in Team Red tries to clear the ball but inadvertently smacks it full in his own keepers face. Team Blue poaches and scores the rebound. Now I am quite clear that there was no foul but Team Red wants the goal cancelled as the match should have been stopped for possible head injury. I agree and was ready to stop the game but the ball was kicked into the net so quickly I didn't have the chance to stop the game.

Can I / Should I have cancelled the goal? I think it is perhaps beside the point but my thinking also was that regardless of where the GK was hit with the ball then there was no way of stopping Team Blue scoring the rebound. It literally fell to their player two yards out with the goal gaping.

I awarded the goal.

 

[es1]

if the goal happens immediately (in the next few seconds/next touch), then totally fair to allow - as it sounds in your post. if the ball gets passed around before the goal then you'd want to have stopped it.

 

[RefereeX]

I think your logic was spot on. There's no correct law answer as law just says we have it in our remit to stop the game if we deem it to be a serious injury or head injury, but doesn't specify a time frame to do so... so for me it comes down to did the continuation of play for the time it took for the goal to be scored affect the speed of the goalkeeper getting treatment? Sounds like no, not really, and did the injury to the goalkeeper render him unable to stop the rebound or would it have been a certain goal regardless... as you say, you think it would have, so I see no issue allowing the goal.

Obviously with children we have an even bigger duty of care to the players, but we also don't want to be encouraging players to ever think 'having an injury' is going to get them out of a situation where a goal is likely. From your explanation I'd totally back awarding the goal, but I would err on the side of caution in these situations generally.

 

[CaptainsPlease]

The goal cannot be disallowed because 1. Play had not been stopped prior to the ball entering the goal, and 2. There was no offence by the attacking team. It is as simple as that.
It sounds like there was insufficient time to properly assess the situation before the ball entered the goal, so all seems fair.