Advantage!

You need to stop the game until he comes back on.

 

Dodgy, I think 3.10 does in fact refer to law 12. The Q&A is (I think) saying that you don't stop play to administer the caution for the misconduct (a law 12 violation) if that stoppage would further disadvantage the opponent. Clearly it would in the example used in 3.10. It is not necessary for the referee to stop play if a team temporarily fails to field 7 players, such as when there is an equipment or blood issue that can be rectified in a reasonable period of time. Likewise, a player who deliberately leaves the field of play (even without the referee's permission) has not, at least at that moment, necessarily permanently left his team short-handed. I understand what you thought you were seeing in 3.10, but I don't think it supports your conclusion.

 

Good response - I'll try to return the volley until others jump in.

3.10 involves both law 3 and law 12. They had to pick one or the other section to print it under - they just happened to pick law 3. Your reference to the offside issue is a good analogy. The Q&A deals with it under law 11 (11.3), but clearly the focus is on the misconduct covered by law 12. Again, they had to pick one section or the other to print it in, so they picked law 11.

(Now, having said that, I must admit that it surprises me that 3.10.3 doesn't advise the issuance of a caution at the next stoppage. Definitely weakens my argument!)

 

You're not being clear about the situation. Did the player just jump out to get a positive call or did he remove himself for an extended period of time? I thought you meant the later, which should stop the game. If it was a situation where he is trying to avoid a call, play advantage and then caution the player.

 

Re: Re: Advantage!

Unfortunately the example in Q&A 3.10 isn't that clear. It simply says: "When the team consisting of 11 players is about to take a shot at goal one of the players of the team of 7 deliberately leaves the field of play." No mention of whether he sticks around to watch, or high-tails it out of the stadium, or jumps right back on after the shot.

 

Dodgy,

The player who leaves the FOP does not reduce his team to six players - he is still a player of record. The minimum number of players required by Law 3 (actually it is suggested -- national associations could do otherwise) has not been infringed.

But he is guilty of misconduct described either explicitly in Law 3 under the phrase "any other infringement" or implicitly in Law 12 under USB. However, all misconduct is defined in Law 12, entitled "Fouls and MISCONDUCT". For example, a caution is something that if you get two of them, you get sent off and you don't play anymore in that match.

Thus this action is an infringement defined in Law 12 and advantage could (and should) be applied. I would expect the misconduct to be USB, but that is not important.

 

Let's be clear and state the the USSF Advice to Referees states advantage is applied in the case of fouls and misconduct. Stepping off the field of play when playing 7 in order to have the match abandoned still will result in the advantage being invoked during the attack by the opposing team, since the players action is a cautionable offense. I see no contradiction between the ATR and the Q & A.

Here is the exact text from FIFA regarding the Q & A article 3 (the players), question 10 states:

 

First of all Dodgy, there is a huge difference between being willing to listen to and consider other viewpoints, and accepting them as being correct. Just because you have not convinced us that the ATR (which is authorized by FIFA) is wrong, doesn't mean that we aren't being reasonable.

Secondly, you are mixing terms and phrases even in this thread. You say we should apply the advantage clause "when ever an indiscretion has been committed against a team". Well, your own words squarely put it into the realm of law 12. The player stepping off of the field of play cannot be considered to have commited "an indiscretion against the other team" unless you consider it to be either a foul or misconduct. If we stick to your insistence that Q&A 3.10 must only be viewed in the context of law 3, the player is actually committing an indiscretion against his own team - he's making them play shorthanded temporarily. We already know that the laws do not provide for the game to be abandoned simply because a team temporarily falls below 7 players on the field of play, and since the player left without the referee's permission, he technically is still on the field. There would be no reason to even consider stopping play in the example given in Q&A 3.10 unless the issue being considered is the accompanying law 12 misconduct.

The problem with extending the advantage clause beyond law 12 is that you then have a real problem deciding where to draw the line. For example, the ball is last played by a Blue midfielder. On an errant drop he sends it far down the touchline into his own defensive third. A Red wing sprints down the line to collect the ball and will have a clear breakaway toward Blue's goal. However, just before he gets there, the ball rolls ever so slightly (but completely) into touch and then back onto the field of play. Are you suggesting that the AR should keep his flag down and allow Red to play the ball because it would be more advantageous than to stop play and award Red the throwin? I'm sure you aren't, but where are you going to draw the advantage line between that absurdity and law 12 if you say it goes beyond law 12?

 

So what is the contradiction between the ATR and the LOTG or the Q&A?

 

http://www.ussoccer.com/templates/includes/services/referees/pdfs/Advice2001.pdf

 

I don't understand what you mean when you suggest "that 'misconduct' can be committed against the other LOTG as in say an assistant flagging for offside...". Clearly neither the player nor the AR engages in "misconduct" by committing an offside infraction or raising a flag. To apply the term "misconduct" to a simple offside infraction would be a gross misapplication of both the LOTG and SOTG.

I assume you are referring to situations where the AR flags for offside but the CR waves him down because the defense recovers the ball. We've had many discussions on this board concerning that scenario, but in every example it has always been a situation where the offside infraction never truely develops. The AR sees the attacking player in an offside position and as the ball goes toward that player, the AR raises the flag. When the CR sees that the defensive player, rather than the offside attacker, has in fact gained clear possession and control, the CR waives off the AR's flag. This is not a situation where the CR applies the advantage clause - it is simply a matter of the offside infraction never being consumated. It may seem like we're splitting hairs, but we're not. There is a clear difference between saying that an infraction didn't occur on the one hand, and saying that it did occur but that it would be more advantageous to the opponent to allow play to continue uninterrupted on the other.

 

DR,

What are you saying?

Yes, Law 12 describes how we deal with fouls misconduct related to ALL other Laws in the body we called The Laws of the Game, or, on your side of the pond, The Laws of Association Football. We also share Law 5 which states that the referee "allows play to continue when the team against which an offense has been comitted will benefit from such an advantage ..."

In every country in the world, advantage is instructed as to be applied soley to offenses against opponents. In the LOTG and LOAF, only Law 12 deals with offenses againt opponents. Therefore, only the offenses covered in Law 12 would logically apply to advantage.

Now, of greater interest, Dodgy, is why is it, do you think it is that we are instructed, and to my knowledge on both sides of the pond (my mentor some 30 years ago was a former EPL ref), that the advantage clause must never be applied to an offside infraction. The idiom "two drinks from the well" should give you a little hint.

Have a day,

Sherman

 

This is not a case of "advantage". Even if the attacker has made a move toward play, he did not affect the outcome of the play (the defender or keeper got the ball and cleared it). Therefore the attempt at participation by the offside-positioned player was interrupted, and consequently there was no offside offense.

 

The ATR is only revised and re-issued every few years. In the interim, USSF releases Memoranda or Position Papers with changes or clarifications in how things should be interpreted.

Here is the page on the website listing all the position papers since the 2001 updates to the ATR.

http://www.ussoccer.com/referees/default.sps?iType=220&icustompageid=230

 

Yes, I would whistle for a handball. You play the whistle not the assistant referees flag.

 

Either the offside infraction occurred or it did not. Just because the AR (and maybe even the CR) may make some assumptions about what is going to happen as the ball travels through the air, they must wait until the play develps before deciding whether an infraction actually occurred. In the course of that second or two they may both change their minds about what they think is going to happen, but the fact that they momentarily guess right or wrong does not mean that they have invoked any concept of advantage. The AR should wait to be sure before raising his flag - the CR must wait to be sure before deciding to stop play. If the infraction did occur and the CR decides to stop play, then anything that happens after the infraction is moot so far as the restart is concerned. IFK for the defender.

If the offside infraction did not occur, the CR has no reason to stop play. It is not a matter of advantage, it is a non-event. In that scenario, the AR is wrong. The CR should wave down the AR's flag and play should continue. If the defender foolishly decides to (literally) take matters into his own hands based upon the AR's erroneous/premature flag, then he has nobody to blame but himself. The CR has no business taking pity on him and then deciding that he is going to go back and change his mind about whether an offside infraction really occurred. DFK to the attacking team for the handling.

The advantage clause has no role to play in either scenario.

 

pk,

It occurs to me that what Dodgy may be referrng to is the old mechanic used by linesmen of flagging position prior to their duties being expanded where assitant referees a now instructed to only signal in the case of position and involvement. Just as we have some referees in the US who still prefer not to have their AR's signal involvement and want the flag for positon, it is possible that there may be ref's in the UK who follwo this same practice.

Sherman

 

Sherman,

I would refute this assumption unless the referee(s) were schooled prior to the 1990's, it would run counter to the offsides calls I see on an almost daily basis from watching the FA Cup and EPL. The AR's are not signaling position. They are signaling involvement as we do in the United States. The only example I can think of would be an older referee that never upgraded or refused to take the time to read the memmoranda and changes to the LOTG.