So I had an interesting experience at an MRL tournament last fall. U14 boys game, fairly competitive. Anyways, White 9 has the ball and is dribbling in Blue’s PA. He takes a touch and pushes it past two defenders. From a third defender to the side he receives a strong kick to his leg which knocks him off the ball a bit but not off balance. He continues two steps and sees it isn’t advantageous to catch up to the ball which I think he could have done. After those two steps where he has perfect balance and coordination, he falls onto the ground looking for the penalty. Before he had even taken that second step, I had decided to call the penalty instead and after he had fallen I blew the whistle. Now it could have appeared I was only blowing the whistle because he fell over but that wasn’t the case. There was no way him retaining the ball would have been more of an advantage than the PK. That being said, it was very obvious that the initial kick isn’t what caused him to fall to the ground. That fall was his attempt at saying “shoot, I missed my opportunity earlier to go down but I’m hoping this will make him blow the whistle.” Needless to say, there was quite a bit of an “uproar” that I would call a penalty for someone going down so late. I didn’t card him because at that time I thought that it didn’t really meet the criteria of faking an injury and a foul actually took place so he wasn’t trying to say there was a foul when there wasn’t one. My question is, could I have carded the attack for embellishing on that play?
Nice question. I say yes, although as I started trying to parse it through the precise language of the new LOTG it proved somewhat more delicate than I had anticipated, to the extent that I tired of it and quit. But I still say yes. The old ATR said "Fakes a foul (dives) or exaggerates the severity of a foul," which made it easy. Substantively, I don't think that has changed.
Stick with this. Imagine the attacker was already sitting on a caution. You award him a penalty, then send him off. I'm havin' a laugh.
Can you? Of course. Should you? That's more complicated. The USB list in the LOTG is not exhaustive (to wit, "including if a player...."). So it doesn't have to fit into one of the examples--USB is what you say it is. (That's why we have judgment.) But it could fit into deceptions, as the language is "attempts to deceive the referee e.g. by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled (simulation)." "E.g." means "for example," so it is not exclusive. And you could conclude that there was something deceptive about the fall, exaggerating the impact of the foul. And even if you don't like it fitting there and feel compelled to have a bullet to fall under, there is always "shows a lack of respect for the game"--the catch all within the catch all. So you could. Should you? Maybe, but likely not. Depending on the game, the caution might be a way to educate the player about diving--especially if it is a game where either a second caution is extremely unlikely or there have been diving issues that you need to deal with and show you weren't conned by the dive. But more likely the game will be adequately served by a bit of an AC. "You're lucky I saw the foul before your silly little dive. If I wasn't already calling the foul, I'd be cautioning you for faking a foul." Loud enough for the defenders to know that it wasn't the dive that got the foul--you saw both the dive and the foul and took care of both.
I would agree that the LOTG allow you do give the foul and caution, but I'd agree with the above posters that you shouldn't do this. I like the verbal AC idea. ^^^
I like the very visible AC option also, but would add YHTBT to see just how egregious it was. This reminds me of how much I hate it when I get put in the position of calling something I was going to call anyway, but looking like I called it because of (a) the fouled player's demonstrativeness, (b) the coach's howl of anguish, (c) the fans' reaction, or (d) choose your poison. This happens not infrequently because I tend to deploy a slow whistle. A caution is certainly defensible here though, even if not as a form of simulation (which I still think it is), then as "provocative" or a particularly peevish form of dissent. "Oh you're not going to blow for that, OK I'll fall down. How do you like that?"
Would probably not caution him but I’d have to see it in person. The only reasons I would caution would be if it was especially ridiculous, and also to show the offender, other players, and coaches (forget about the spectators) that I saw it and I know what was going on. Even though he exaggerated, it was still a foul and I called the penalty for that foul but I still got him for his action. But a very public AC would work just as well IMO.
It was a dead ball, but I remember Elfath getting Blas Perez on this a few years ago. Cautioned the opponent for his misconduct (game disrepute) AND cautioned Perez for exaggerating the severity of the contact. It was Perez's second yellow, and he was sent off.
Huh, thought this would be about Hazard when I saw the thread title. As I've said before, the laws (and instructions) should be changed to expressively allow for this to happen. It is two separate acts by two separate players, why should it not be treated as such. Allowing (encouraging even) referees to punish embellishment while still awarding a rightful PK might just be the most effective way of curbing diving in the game.
Frankly I think we need to have more leeway to card for “exaggerated fouls” if we want to remove the soap opera acting players do. This type of thing would never fly in the pros, every camera would only show he foul. Not the William Shatner wannabe hamming it up after the fact.
I've always had difficulty here. • attempts to deceive the referee e.g. by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled (simulation) I'm not certain we can and stay under the laws. The OP indicates there was a foul. So, on can't really "pretend[] to have been fouled" if he was actually foul. Likewise, the OP gives no indication that he was "feigning injury" So, an exaggerated dive that occurs during/after an actual foul isn't really covered by this. It's also difficult, IMO, to claim this is a lack of respect. But is is defintely grounds for an AC
The LOTG don't say to make calls differently based on whether the game was on TV. I understand considering what the players who saw what happened will expect. However, I don't think a referee should worry about pleasing or not antagonizing fans (at the stadium or on TV) who the referee thinks will disagree with the call but would have agreed with the call if the fans had seen everything. Can't he have been fouled and then pretend to have been fouled without contact a couple of seconds later? Not that this matters to soccer, but the NHL allows Player X to commit a penalty on Player Y and Player Y to get a penalty for embellishment at the same time.
Based on previous discussions and official statements on PRO website on how they want some things called we know the pros get different instruction than the laws. I don’t disagree with you. I think it should be called and public opinion be damned, but the almighty quid is king.
"e.g." stands for exempli gratia latin for "for example" Therefore "feigning injury" or "pretending to have been fouled" are meant to be examples of "attempts to deceive the referee." I would read this to mean they are not the only allowable examples. So there exists a basis in law here. Personally, I'm not going with absolutes on this. I would say one should be looking at DFK + AC by default but I can imagine a scenario where I would go with DFK + C. It would have to be an extraordinary flop and/or a previous pattern of deceit they were already warned about.
I agree with most of you, but I just want to add one piece of info that is missing. The OP has stated that he already decided to call a PK. Therefore in the OTR the play is already dead. Therefore if he decides to caution it can not be for simulation. It would have to be for other type of UB. Similar to when the ball is out of bounds and an overly aggressive player still decides to slide and take out an opponent.
I don't follow that. The caution would be for UB; the ball doesn't have to be in play for UB to occur. I don't see it either in the context of the current definition of simulation specifically, which is: