Question Number: 35665

Mechanics 8/21/2024

RE: Premier league match observer

Yusuf abdulganiu of Lagos, Lagos Nigeria asks...

A referee picked a foul and the tean started a quick restart and he allow the game to continue which later resulted to a penalty. What advice as an observer gives the referee after the game based on the above decisions

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Yusuf
Thanks for the question
There is not enough details here to give an opinion.

There can be many factors at play such as
Was it a foul? Was it a penalty?
Did play restart and then brought back to award a penalty?
Was the free kick taken from the correct location?
Did the referee intervene before the restart?
Should there have been cards for the offences such as reckless challenge, stopping a promising attack, denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity etc?

Each situation will be different and what might work in the majority of the time might not be applicable in certain circumstances.
In addition observers may want referees to follow the advice given in training modules or advice given in previous observations.

Now as regards an observation there is an opportunity to discuss incidents in the post match discussion and to question any advice.
Observers are there to help develop referees and to pass on knowledge gained over the years. Their role is also to ensure that training advice is implemented in games as per training modules.
A second set of informed eyes can bring clarity to situations and also give advice that can help a referee’s future performances. Sometimes referees make mistakes in Law that need correcting. Most times it is mechanics which has caused a problem in the game.
Post match discussions in observations focus on the key incidents in a game which might have none or one or a few. One incident not handled correctly can cause a referee all sorts of problems from that moment onwards.

I recall an observation where I had allowed advantage on a goal scoring opportunity and the attacker got a shot away which was saved. The foul was a tug back which in fairness to the attacker did not make anything of it. The observer felt it should have been a free kick and a red card. I did not agree with that and if I had the same incident again I would still go with advantage and no card. It was near the end of the game which meant it did not affect the overall game which I was happy with.

It did annoy me at the time and I probably did not handle the post match discussion on that situation all that well by teasing out the incident more with the observer.
Looking back the game at the time I had one regret which funnily enough was not picked up by the observer. I felt if I had handled that situation better it would not have led to an incident later in the game.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Yusuf,
while your English is certainly superior to my knowledge of any of the 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria such as Hausa, Yoruba, or Igbo unfortunately I can not 100% parse apart the meaning of your question?

This is my perception of what I think you are asking !

The CR decided there was a foul and blew the whistle to stop play.
The attacking team chose to quickly restart.
The CR was OK with the restart and had no immediate reason to intervene.

Here is my/our confusion when you say "which later resulted to a penalty" what is it about?

Is it related to a card (caution for that first stoppage foul? You can let the restart go ahead BUT if there is a card to be shown for that initial foul it MUST occur BEFORE the RESTART! In cases like that you HOLD play up for a ceremonial aka wall/whistle restart once you display the card only then you can restart.

If you apply advantage and DO NOT stop play, thus there is no restart as there would be if you whistled, you can show a card if it was a cautionable action, after the next stoppage in play but before the next restart!

If you are being assessed, then hopefully the knowledge and wisdom this mentor figure has will be put to good use to assist you in your training . We learn through experience, our own as well as others! Reviewing your matches in the post game is always good practise! I suggest you try to get a referee to think it through and explain their actions on situations where you believe they were in difficulty or saw some issue you thought needed correcting. A CR in real time may have additional info that factors into their management strategies than the armchair critics know about! That said if there are LOTG issues where improper procedures are creating replay or protestable situations due to poor decision making, poor positioning, improper management techniques or failing to understand the proper restarts and procedures! These are things you write up in the report that need to be addressed with more training and education.

If you can think on how you might give us greater understanding and rewrite the question we will do out best to assist you!
Cheers