offside on PK

[anderson]

Originally posted by olafgb
Which law system in the whole wide world follows this principle? ;) (okay, you said that this is what law schools teach...)Exactly, Olaf. That's why it was unfortunate theoretical training. ;)

Don't worry, I won't lose too much sleep pondering the rationale behind this rule. But the LOTG do get examined from time to time, so I don't think there's anything odd (ok, maybe not anything really odd) with wondering about a few of them. And I'm by no means suggesting that this rule should be changed. I'm just wondering what thinking resulted in people concluding that the PK taker shouldn't be allowed to play the ball off the frame. He would likely have an advantage over any other field player, so maybe that's what the authors of the rule had in mind?

[superdave]

Originally posted by anderson
Don't worry, I won't lose too much sleep pondering the rationale behind this rule.
Without this rule, the PK taker could just dribble the ball in. More commonly, run up, tap the ball, then drill it to the opposite side from the one the GK dove to.

It makes perfect sense. It's only that the rule doesn't have a clause about hitting the post that makes it seem weird in this situation.

At one time, it was legal for a basketball player to run up to the FT line, take off, and lay it in. That's because when Naismith designed the game in 1895 or whatever, the notion of that kind of athleticism didn't occur to him. I've seen it mentioned that Wilt Chamberlain used to dunk FTs (he was an amazing all around athlete, you know. A collegiate track star and all.) They put in the current rule to stop him from doing this.