Question Number: 27773

Law 8 - Start and Restart of Play 9/16/2013

RE: Rec Adult

Stephen J Quinn of Perth, Australia asks...

I have been a referee for just three years, but was a club linesman (sorry, I mean assistant referee) for thirty years, and have seen many changes in the laws. Almost all these changes - such as the present way of judging offside - have vastly improved the game. I remember routinely flagging ten or even twenty offsides in the course of a game, most of which would not be called now. The misleadingly named 'backpass' Law is another example of a great change that actually works (though when it first came in it felt ridiculous, as if the game had been ruined).

My question is, all of these law changes I can see a reason for: to make the game better or the laws more consistent. However why did they change the law that details the choices of the team that wins the initial coin toss Once, you could choose either to kick off or which goal to attack, now you can only choose which goal. I completely understand WHAT the Law is...my problem is WHY they bothered to change it.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Stephen
In the great rewrite of the Laws of the Game that happened in 1997 the Laws were updated to take account of modern wording and also to condense and simply them. The wording was reduced by some 30%.
This change to the kick off happened at that time and unlike IFAB minutes we are not given the reasons for the changes. One can surmise that it is easier to have one decision to focus on which is direction of play and that the winning team gets the kick off in the 2nd half. I would also suspect that not getting the ball at the kick off is not a big issue as distinct from direction. My recollection of decisions when teams had a choice is that direction was always the important decision such as with or against the wind, with the sun, with or into the slope etc.
Probably communication is easier for the referee in the international game as the winning captain just has to point direction.