Question Number: 23133

Law 8 - Start and Restart of Play 4/17/2010

RE: high school JV High School

barry barbush of york, pa usa asks...

A player gets hurt near the 18 of their attacking end and goes down to the ground. Her teammate dribbles the ball to goal and shoots. The ref blows the whistle to attend to the injured player while the ball is in the air. The ball continues into the net. Is this considered a goal or is it a dead ball when his whistle blows no matter where it is? Thanks and regards, barry barbush

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Barry
Once the referee stops play a goal cannot be scored even if the ball is in the air headed towards goal. In this case the referee has stopped play to deal with an injury and as the ball did not enter the goal before the whistle, the goal does not count and after the injured player has been treated the game restarts with a dropped ball from where the ball was when play was stopped.
You do not mention the type of injury. Referees treat head injuries very seriously and play should be stopped to deal with those instantly.
If it was a minor injury then IMO play should be allowed to continue. It would be easy to deal with the injury a few seconds later after the goal and then restart with a kick off.

Answer provided by Referee Gene Nagy

Barry, unlike in basketball (a game invented by a Canadian) where time can expire while the ball is in flight and the basket will still count, in soccer a whistle indicates an immediate stoppage. The ball is dead instantly. The only way you can breathe life into the ball is by restarting the game. As we both know a goal cannot be scored by a dead ball, so in this case no goal was scored.
Here the restart will be a drop ball.
We can speculate if this was good or bad refereeing. No matter how good or how bad the goal can never counted.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The ball is dead when the whistle blows. Unless the ball was already completely over the goal line, the goal is disallowed.

The restart under high school rules varies. If the attacking team had clear possession of the ball when the referee decided to stop play, the restart is an indirect free kick to the team in possession. Otherwsie, the restart is a drop ball.