The Ref Stop

Who does the dropped ball go to if none of the teams had possession of the ball at the time the whistle was blown.?

The Ref Stop
happy whistler said:
I tell the player I am dropping the ball to what he is now allowed to do and I am saying it loud enough so that nearby players can hear me. Why - because most players don't understand law change.
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Done that, most still want to 'kick it back'.

Had a Development league fixture where the manager told his team to ignore me and kick the ball back to the opposition as well... Daft.
 
None of the players I ref here in Somerset seem to have misunderstood the new drop ball law. I've not had any instances where they want to just kick it back to the other team either?
 
socal lurker said:
But that isn’t really a problem. It’s their ball. If the team thinks it is the sporting thing to kick it to the other team, no skin off my nose.
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Defeats the point of the law change IMO, and I'm not sure why it would be sporting to "give the ball back" when, say, I've stopped play in situations specifically because the team in possession has a player down injured. Had I let them kick it out, they'd be 'getting it back' from the opposition. So they're just doing it backwards!
 
I just drop it to them. If they want to kick it back to the keeper then let them. Fulfil our duties and play on.

Ultimately I'm happy to see some remnant of sportsmanship - although it's weird when the rest of the 90 they're happy to hack away.
 
So, all of us give instruction, some of which is ignored and for some, nothing much has changed. As to why there is disparity, based on geography and such like, I can't say. The killer blow comes from EPL referees not enacting the Law as it was intended. I can't therefore have much faith in the longevity of this rule change
 
RobOda said:
Defeats the point of the law change IMO, and I'm not sure why it would be sporting to "give the ball back" when, say, I've stopped play in situations specifically because the team in possession has a player down injured. Had I let them kick it out, they'd be 'getting it back' from the opposition. So they're just doing it backwards!
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I’m not saying that is what teams should do, I’m saying as a ref, I have no reason to care. If they want to give it back, so be it. Totally up to them. (With the new law, there are times when it would be sporting to give it back. The most obvious would be if an attacker had clear possession in the PA when the ref stops play. But the GK gets the ball.)
 
Had my first dropped ball after the ball hit me and changed posession. New laws just starting for us. Opponents wanted to kick it back. I said they can't be contesting it because of new laws and I have to drop it to the the other team. They all accepted it. After I dropped it to the team 'last touched' -had clear posession- they 'kick it back' (what the 'back'?) to the other side to everyone's applaud. The ball is in play and they can do what they like. It will take them a while before they learn there is no reason for them to kick it back - or give it away for free in my case.
 
afronaut81 said:
Ultimately I'm happy to see some remnant of sportsmanship
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It's not sporting though, is it? If the team kicking the ball back had possession before the stoppage (and even more so if it was their player who was injured, as @RobOda points out) then if anything, it's the opposite of fairness and sportsmanship. You have a situation where the team that would have had absolutely no right to the ball if play had not been stopped, gets to have the ball.
(Edit: Except for the scenario mentioned by @socal lurker above, where an attacker had the ball in the opposition penalty area.)

Under the old law, kicking the ball back restored possession to the team that had it when play was stopped. If, as everyone agreed, that was the sporting thing to do, how can it now be sporting to do something that achieves the exact opposite result?
 
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Peter Grove said:
It's not sporting though, is it? If the team kicking the ball back had possession before the stoppage (and even more so if it was their player who was injured, as @RobOda points out) then if anything, it's the opposite of fairness and sportsmanship. You have a situation where the team that would have had absolutely no right to the ball if play had not been stopped, gets to have the ball.
(Edit: Except for the scenario mentioned by @socal lurker above, where an attacker had the ball in the opposition penalty area.)

Under the old law, kicking the ball back restored possession to the team that had it when play was stopped. If, as everyone agreed, that was the sporting thing to do, how can it now be sporting to do something that achieves the exact opposite result?
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It's not all about posession here. It's about resetting the game to a fairly neutral position, normally following an injury that their teammate may have inadvertently caused.
Like I said so long as we do our bit by the book the players can do what they like.

Nb In dropped balls where it's hit me and possession has changed they have not yet kicked it back to the goalkeeper. They know this is the method to restore possession and therefore keep it.
 
afronaut81 said:
It's not all about posession here. It's about resetting the game to a fairly neutral position, normally following an injury that their teammate may have inadvertently caused.
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I don't follow - the new law was brought in precisely in order to reset the game to where it was when the game had to be stopped. For one thing, I don't know if you'd noticed but it had become increasingly common for teams not to kick the ball back to the opponent's goalkeeper, but to kick it out of play as close to the corner flag at the opposite end as they could.

As many people had pointed out, under the old law, a team could have to go from being in a promising attacking position in the opponent's half, to being put under pressure close to their own corner flag - hardly a neutral position, if you ask me. Even if the ball were to be kicked to the other team's goalkeeper, they would still have lost any territorial advantage they had, through no fault of their own.

So I think we're going to have to disagree here - I think the new system is much fairer and more neutral than the old one which nearly always disadvantaged the team in possession when play was stopped, to a greater or lesser extent.
 
Peter Grove said:
I don't follow - the new law was brought in precisely in order to reset the game to where it was when the game had to be stopped. For one thing, I don't know if you'd noticed but it had become increasingly common for teams not to kick the ball back to the opponent's goalkeeper, but to kick it out of play as close to the corner flag at the opposite end as they could.

As many people had pointed out, under the old law, a team could have to go from being in a promising attacking position in the opponent's half, to being put under pressure close to their own corner flag - hardly a neutral position, if you ask me. Even if the ball were to be kicked to the other team's goalkeeper, they would still have lost any territorial advantage they had, through no fault of their own.

So I think we're going to have to disagree here - I think the new system is much fairer and more neutral than the old one which nearly always disadvantaged the team in possession when play was stopped, to a greater or lesser extent.
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Happy to leave it at that. I think the games I've been in (admittedly as player) have never had the scenarios that you have encountered.

Agreed that the new system is an improvement - I always hated contested drop balls and saw a bad injury from one of them.
 
IMO, the new DB is equal or better than the old one 90-95% of the time. There are outlier scenarios that don't work out as well. I doubt we're going back. But I suspect we'll see tweaks to how the laws treat the ball hitting the ref.
 
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