Question Number: 25894

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 1/15/2012

RE: Select High School

Gary of Lebanon, Ohio USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 25870

I want to change one thing in this and lets say the defender has already been cautioned in the match.

What happens if the keeper punts the ball away and the player that was cautioned already scores a goal before a stoppage in play that would have allowed the referee to issue a second yellow and red card send off? By not stopping play at some time prior it seems to give the players team that grabbed a jersey an advantage by not stopping the play when that team gained possesion of the ball. On the other hand though play should not be stopped by the referee for this... I am interested to hear what you guys think...

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

In the case where the cautionable offence would actually be a second yellow card, then for the purposes of determining whether you should apply advantage I'd effectively consider it as a red card.

Generally we don't want to apply advantage on cautionable offences too often - we'll only do so when the opposing team has a very clear attack going on.

As for advantage on a red card (or second cautionable) offence - I'd only start to consider advantage if it would be extremely unfair to do anything else. In short, I'd only begin to consider applying advantage if the opposing team has a very clear, very obvious goalscoring opportunity.

Going back to the original scenario that was posted, this is exactly what happened. So in this situation I probably would still apply advantage, as to do anything else is taking away the obvious goalscoring opportunity from the opposing team - and really, a goal is a much more favourable outcome then playing with a man advantage (which rarely seems to be capitalised upon). Naturally there's a risk involved with this, and that risk is why we should only apply advantage on these cases in rare instances - but if you do so then you also need to accept the risk that it'll backfire.

Sometimes refereeing is 'darned if you do, darned if you don't'. This would be one of those times.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Gary
The advice is that it is not a good idea to play advantage when the referee decides to send off a player either directly or through a second caution. The only exception is an immediate goal scoring opportunity.
As you point out when the referee allows advantage it can take a while for the ball to actually go out of play and indeed it could so happen that the 'offender' can play a significant part in subsequent play if the ball is turned over. Generally though the immediate goal scoring advantage and a delayed caution is a fairly rare event.
Personally I don't like the idea of play continuing for a while on an advantage with the referee dismissing a player for a 2nd caution some time later. I believe that if the foul so merits a caution that results in a dismissal then justice should be immediate and swift with the player immediately dismissed. The dealyed caution can look like an aftertohought or players can have 'forgotten' about the reason for the caution and seen it as insignificant.
Hopefully it would work out for the referee should the situation arise on the immediate goal scoring situation.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

If the player who commits the cautionable offense is already on a caution, and the new offense MUST be cautioned (by this I mean not to do so will harm game management and the game), do not let play continue unless his opponents have an IMMEDIATE and credible opportunity to score. If the fouling player or his team, as your question seems to suggest, retains possession, then absolutely do not wait.

If you meant the fouling player's opponents maintained possession, you can wait a few seconds to see what is going to happen. But don't wait very long - the longer the referee waits from the incident makes it harder and harder to sell and to deal with the inevitable blow back from his team.