Question Number: 26895

Law 8 - Start and Restart of Play 10/10/2012

RE: Competitive Under 18

Kley Parkhurst of Mc Lean, VA USA asks...

Is this the correct way to do a drop ball?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_O_bsm2lvQ#t=22m40s

[editors, and for your own amusement, watch how the same referee sets a line for a restart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_O_bsm2lvQ#t=50m50s ]

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Kley
Very poor mechanics here by the referee. Once the ball touched the ground on the dropped ball it was in play and the referee should not have touched it again.
However I suspect the referee was concerned that Blues might chase down the ball and perhaps cause a match control issue as Reds did not react as they should have. As regards why it was a dropped ball in the 1st place is questionable. There appears to be a foul against Blue at 22.07, the referee signals advantage, the ball is kicked forward by Blue #9 with the whistle sounding and then a caution for that Blue player? The referee then restarts with the dropped ball?
I viewed the whole video to get a sense of what happened here. Again at 33.53 the referee cautions Blue 5 and then restarts again with a dropped ball this time to the goalkeeper? I believe the caution was for swearing but the restart has to be an indirect free kick restart if the game is stopped to caution for that 'offence'. I suspect Blue 9 was cautioned earlier for swearing. That also caused the referee problems later as action was not taken against the two cautioned players for game incidents and the players were simply warned rather than a 2nd caution. I also suspect that the lift and throw back of the ball by the referee was a response to the concern of play continuing to the advantage of Blue on a questionable caution for swearing?
He also struggled with the use of 'trifling' as many insignificant fouls were called which began to frustrate both teams and the Blue coach appeared to be ejected as a result.
As regards the free kick management the referee clearly has not been shown the correct way to do this and he did it a number of times in the game.
Overall the referee has a number of development points such as his understanding of the dropped ball restart, his dealing with swearing, free kick management and also to allow the game to flow rather than constant whistling for trifling fouls.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Pretty funny, but sad. Looks like there was a foul that went beyond careless and deserving of a card. The referee stopped play and appeared to be doing everything that indicates a caution is being given. Except he doesn't show a card. Maybe he just wanted to talk to a player and that led to the dropped ball.

Prior to that there were fouls called that didn't happen, fouls that happened uncalled, numerous restarts with the ball not stationary and on and on.

The referee dropped the ball and a Blue player kicked it towards his keeper. I'm guessing both the keeper and the referee knew the keeper could not legally pick the ball up so our referee runs to the ball, picks it up and drops it now to the keeper.

Two problems here:
1. The referee had no business picking up the ball
2. There's no indication he stopped play so the keeper STILL was prohibited from handling the ball as the referee is just part of the field and the ball has to touch another player before the keeper may legally handle it

Love his setting the wall! Was he head butting the players to move? Or just walking over them? Regardless, looks more like a 6 yard wall than a 10 yard