Question Number: 12662

Law 8 - Start and Restart of Play 4/28/2006

RE: rec Under 8

Liane of Colleyville, TX USA asks...

If a team has a fast break and a child from the opposing team suddenly falls down as if hurt, what is the rule for what happens when play starts again? I always thought it would be to award the attacking team a free kick from where the play was whistled dead. Is this correct?

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Restarts of play are based on why play stops. If play stops and no restart of play exists in the Laws the referee is required to restart with a dropped ball. The location is where the ball was when play stopped.

A player falling down, as if hurt, has no restart defined elsewhere in the Laws, so a referee stopping play to evaluate the seriousness of an injury to a player is, therefore, restarts play with a dropped ball as written in Law 8.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Liane,
in youth soccer I belive we tend (correctly so I might add) to lean on the side of safety when it comes to the health of our children. As my colleague explains if we stop play SOLEY to deal with an incident where we suspect a player COULD be seriously injured the dropball restart is the ONLY one allowed under the laws of the game. The restart is taken from where the ball was at the time of the stoppage

If however the referee found the player to be faking or attempting to decieve then we have an INDFK restart in favour of the opponents at the spot where he is down rolling about in the form of bad acting everywhere and shown the yellow card awarding a caution to the cheater!

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

If you stop play solely to deal with an injury, the proper restart is a dropped ball at the point the ball was when you stopped play.