Question Number: 34445

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 12/6/2021

RE: competive Under 19

JEANNE K TURNER of Mount Shasta, CA United States asks...

An attacker running with the ball sees an opponent in front of them and runs over the goal line 10 yards from the goal to continue playing the ball. The opponent then tackles him off the field of play in a reckless manner to prevent them from continuing their run. What is the referee’s decision?

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Jeanne,
there are no issues with momentume taking players off the pitch, That is considered part of normal playas long as they return post haste and certainly do nothing like you describe!
The LOTG were changed a few years to adequately address such an unfair off the field incident to be more than just misconduct with an indfk or drop restart. Nowadays this is deemed as occuring on the FOP at the nearest boundry line, in this case the goal line, within the scope of the penalty area. If the referee recognizes the tackle as a DFK offence, it is upgraded to a penalty kick and the caution show the yellow card for the reckless manner in which this occurs would also occur. Should it be a 2nd caution, the red sleigh would be taken and the team plays a man down on top of the PK against them.
Merry Christmas

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Jeanne
Thanks for the question.
As Referee Dawson correctly points out the Laws of the Game have been amended in recent times to deal with such situations. We know it is not an offence to leave the field of play as part of a playing action or through momentum so a player going over a boundary line to go past an opponent is perfectly legal.

What is not legal is a reckless challenge on a player on or off the field of play while the ball is in play so the referee stops play, cautions the opponent for a reckless challenge and the restart is a direct free kick on the boundary line closest to where the offence took place.

If the offence happened over the goal line and the closest point is inside the penalty area the restart is a penalty kick.

In the past many referees looked for some part of the player to be ON the field of play or that the offences started on the field of play to award the direct free kick or penalty kick rather than the DB which was the restart back then before the Law change. That was in many instances not correct in Law yet referees felt that it was the *best* decision in the circumstances for a blatant foul just over a boundary line. The Law change tidied all that up in that such offences are now punished by a DFK or a penalty kick whether it happens on the field of play or not.

You can watch such a decision being awarded in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPCy59Lpfyw&t=149s
The trip is clearly off the field of play yet the correct decision was made to award a penalty kick.

It is a very rare offence as players rarely get fouled totally off the field of play or to be seen as all the way off at the moment of the offence. I don't ever recall seeing such an offence in any of my games or at least so obvious that it had to have happened all the way off the FOP.