Question Number: 18010

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 11/27/2007

RE: Varsity High School

Kevin Carnes of Visalia, CA USA asks...

Team A's gaolkeeper succesfully blocks a shot on goal and has possion of the ball. The keeper then punts the ball long down the field, where it is received by a Team A forward. Immediatly after receiving the ball the last defender of Team B makes a very bad tackle on the forward with the ball. THe forward though stumbling regained his footing and began on a one on one breakaway for the goal. I verbally yelled "Advantage" and signalled it with my arms. At the same moments I hear my linesman's flag in the back field snap. I turned my head for a split second and saw that the Team A goalkeeper and a team B player were fist fighting. I waved down the linesman and continued to follow the play. The forward then scored whom I had just given Advantage to. I acknowledged the goal, then sprinted back up the field and sent off the Team A goalkeeper and the Team B player for fighting. After that I restarted the with a kick off from the center and each team had 10 players. Was this correct proceedure, for this incident or should I have immediatly stopped the game and taken care of the fight?

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Is there any chance that your AR was using the correct hand for the flag, so that you knew who started the fight back at the other end? If the Team A goalkeeper started it, you shouldn't play advantage for Team A to score the goal. If your AR is signalling direction for a PK, you should have stopped play.

In general it's risky to allow advantage for a sending-off offense, because the player has nothing left to lose and may commit some other offense.

I'm concerned that it appears you allowed the fight to continue until the goal was scored. What if the punch that broke the opponent's nose happened after you noticed the fight, but before you decided to stop play?

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Kevin, this is high school, not the pros! I couldn't agree more with what Ref Voshol has to say. You, the neutral party, cannot risk allowing a possible goal scoring opportunity to go forward if you KNOW there is an actual fight going on at that moment! You must stop and sort that out - for safety's sake, for the game's sake and not least for your remaining game control's sake.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

For a referee to allow a fight to progress as he plays advantage well away from the fight is just asking for a boatload of trouble. Better to sort things and soothe the tempers of the players remaining on the park after dealing with the fighters.

Ref Voshol does ask a huge question, did your assistant follow US Soccer procedure with respect to the hand he flagged with or did he do as usual, just wave the flag in the hand he is most used to? By the way snapping the flag went out about 10 years ago, now referees are expected to see a flag or the other assistant is expected to reflect, or mirror, his colleague's signal.

Regards,

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 17601