Saw this recenlty in an early October match, Celtic vs. Dundee. Keeper down 2-0, but obviosly wants to hold ball and throw it to his feet, maybe a few yards outside of box to kick it further than he can punt. Celtic posts a player by the keeper, but several yards outside box. No real way to argue keeper is being interfered with. Anyway, keeper refused to play it until Celtic player retreats, stalemate lasts longer than 8 seconds, ref instead of giving CK simply calls IFK for the keeper. So keeper gets what he wants (he may have even thrown ball outside of 18 for hte kick, so he got exactly what he wanted). Anyway, just occured to me that this might be a pretty easy way to get out of calling the CK for timewasting. “8 second” Law was introduced to prevent time wasting by the GK. it was introduced to prevent this very scenario. Penalising Maeda was an absolute nonsense & purely a deflection by the Referee. @ACSOMPOD @DundeeUtdFans pic.twitter.com/VZ3WQKu6dX— The Ref’s View (@TheRefsView) January 11, 2026 Mod: if this was already covered on another thread feel free to delete or merge. I couldn't find it though.
Unless there is something missing in context (and I can’t imagine what it would be), I would hope the R gets dinged heavily on his evaluation and the refs in the league are dissuaded from ever calling it like this again. This to me is an example of the very worst kind of “safe” refereeing, (I’m not usually one for wanting lots of changes, but I’d like to see the rule made really simple—opponents need to leave the PA promptly when the GK has the ball, and outside the PA they can do whatever they want. Would make it clear—all the GK has to do is move back to have all the space he wants.)
Talk about a situation where I just see things differently. First, the goalkeeper in question is down 0-2. @jarbitro points this out, but I think it's worth stressing. He's not looking to kill time or delay anything here. Insofar as the spirit of the law goes, I find that very relevant. But second, what is the attacker doing if he's not interfering? Yes, he's legally allowed to stand (almost) wherever he wants on the field. But what professional attacker does that in the modern game when quite literally everyone is 40 yards upfield in the other direction? @jarbitro guesses--perhaps intelligently--that he doesn't want the keeper to put the ball on the floor and play it from there. Okay, I can buy that--at least initially. But standing 6-7 yards away generally accomplishes that. Being in the general vicinity accomplishes that. Here, he starts about 12 yards away when he first more or less establishes himself in a position to prevent that move. And he keeps walking toward him the entire time. And he goes laterally to match the goalkeeper's movements. How do you get from here: To here: If you aren't trying to interfere with the release? In that second screengrab, he's essentially interfering with a punt release if he keeps moving forward. Is the goalkeeper literally prevented from releasing the ball? No, of course not. If you want to go by the letter of the law and call the 8 seconds here, you've got that right. But you're punishing the losing team for timewasting and rewarding unorthodox and kind of dickish behavior at the same time. I get what you're saying about "safe" refereeing, @socal lurker . But for me, the safe route is the right route here. That attacker is trying to manufacture an 8 second call; I don't think we should be giving it to him.
I feel good that very rarely, but at least it’s occasionally, I see things somewhat correctly. These attackers who deliberately come up 5-10 yards to stand right in front of the keeper but keeping it a yard outside the PA to act like they’re far enough away, tracking the keeper’s movements horizontally while still edging closer to him on the vertical plane. I thought this has been the generally accepted “preventing the keeper from releasing the ball” type of situation for many years. Not every incident like this has to be the “running right into the keeper in the box in a borderline SPA manner while he’s trying to distribute the ball”
I think it's worth noting or stressing that the fact that there are no defenders in the same zip code plays a big role. If there's the threat of short distribution to a teammate to start a build-up, I don't think you can punish an attacker for merely standing generally in this area and mimicing the goalkeeper's lateral movement to an extent. The fact that everyone is up field and he deliberately moved toward the keeper and kept moving toward the keeper...? Like, what is he doing? At best, it's what @jarbitro said and he wants to force the goalkeeper to punt it rather than put it on the floor--which, while possible, does seem like it's either a stretch or barely tactically relevant. In totality, I see the movements of all the players combined with the scoreline and IFK coming out just seems like the no-brainer call here. No, but I wish referees would call those! I think we were talking a few years ago how frequently this was happening as a clear tactic that was going unpunished. Hopefully the advent of the 8 second rule helps get that addressed. But my fear is that, rather than actually calling it when it's a deliberate tactic, referees will just give goalkeepers a few more seconds to compensate. Because as you point out, as crazy as it seems some of this is a type of SPA even though it's 90+ yards away from the attacking goal; players are being trained to deliberately stop a counterattack before it can start.
Interesting. I don’t think I usually line up against the GK on issues. I do think it highlights the nebulous nature of where we are with interfering with release and what that means, we usually ignore the direct offenses, as the GK would still rather have the ball in his hands. Here, the opponent is still a couple of yards away. He doesn’t stop the GK from punting or throwing the pull. He simply takes away the “toss the ball out of the PA” option. The GK doesn’t have a right to do that unfettered and have the ball outside the PA with space. Tht takes me back to my solution. Let opponents outside the PA do whatever they want. Once everyone knows that, the line is clear. GKs may have to punt the ball from further back, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. And it’s not like it would be a completely new thing, either. It used to be that the real protection to the GK was only inside the goal area.
I guess this is where I disagree. At first, sure. But by the time he's in that second screengrab I posted, a 3-4 step move to punt the ball is going to be precarious. Now, sure, the goalkeeper could back up 2 yards and make it all easier. But at the same time, the attacker is creating this situation with a very unorthodox "tactical" move (after all, he's leaving himself 40 yards offside 99% of the time). I just think blowing the whistle and giving the goalkeeper an IFK in the PA is the path of least resistance and a justifiable call here. But I'll concede nothing is open and shut about this. There's a lot of interpretation into both player's behavior and psyche. At the end of the day for me, though, I keep going back to the goalkeeper being two goals down and thinking about incentives and match management.
That’s fair. And it’s pretty pointless for the opponent at that stage of the game. (My original post on this topic is overly harsh to the R.) But I’d really like to see the Game find the solution where these aren’t mushy. I’m usually on the “let refs use judgment” side of things, but right now it seems to me keepers get messed with too much on one hand and then oddly protected on the other. A clear rule would benefit everyone. (I’d also like to see the old USSF caution brought back for deliberately messing with the GK within the PA. There is no legitimate reason to do it, yet we can’t sanction it in any way that matters now unless we can justify SPA—so of course defenders mess with the GK b/c it is foolish not to.)
Just out of curiosity, would this be a situation where the referee could use 'man management' to resolve the issue. Something along the lines of "OK, #9, move away - I don't want to give you a YC"?
Sure, but this also isn't a mandatory yellow card offence (or one at all, really). So you can just blow the whistle and then manage it. You are likely 50 yards away, so blowing the whistle and then explaining it is probably the more practical route here.
I disagree. At his closest point, the attacker is still about 5 yards away from the goalkeeper. I have never once seen that whistled as interfering with the goalkeeper’s release. While this is one of he vaguest parts of the LOTG, I just don’t think for a moment this is what is meant to be considered as an offense. It would be drastically re-interpreting decades of precedent. The attacker is nowhere near close enough for this to be considered interfering with the goalkeeper’s ability to release the ball. Yes, we know he’s trying to tactically dissuade the goalkeeper from playing the ball with his feet, but that’s totally fine and legal. The goalkeeper can still release the ball at his feet if he wants, it would just risk being challenged by the attacker after having already released the ball. As for blocking a punt, it would have to be a pretty low line-drive to hit the attacker from that distance. And at that point, you could argue that any opponent anywhere in the attacking half is blocking some possible trajectory of the punt to some extent. The distance at which that becomes unacceptable is not defined, but it’s never been close to being interpreted as being this large. If the attacker moves in closer to block the punt as the goalkeeper is punting it, then it could become an offense. But that hasn’t happened yet. Never mind that the attacker doesn’t get that close until well after the 8 seconds should have expired. The goalkeeper has the ball in his hands from 40:45 (and this was obviously not a difficult save), and the whistle doesn’t come until 41:01. 8 seconds doesn’t mean 16. The screenshot we are discussing happens at least 11 seconds after the goalkeeper has the ball in his hands. The whistle should have already gone for a corner kick by that point!
Okay, so here's the thing. I don't think this is an interfering offence either. But if you see this play in today's game and you reach the point where you feel compelled to blow the whistle, I think manufacturing an IFK coming out for interference is more credible than punishing the goalkeeper for 8 seconds. To that end, there is no precedent because before this past summer, you could just hold your whistle, yell at the players (either for the keeper to get on with it or for the attacker to back off) and not be forced to make a call. Now, with the 8 second rule, you are somewhat forced to do something. And I just think that punishing a goalkeeper for 8 seconds when his team is down 2-0 and he's obviously not trying to waste time is a hill you don't need to die on when one single attacking opponent is engaging in, shall we say, unorthodox behavior. Two players enter a standoff for reasons that we can guess at but can't really discern. Defending and losing team is quite literally in full possession of the ball. Is it better match management to just let them keep the ball and get the game going or should we create an attacking set piece for the winning team? This is just one of those Law 18 things for me. Match and player management wins out over a literal reading of the LOTG.
I just think this is way too much of a stretch to bring match and player management into it. You’re basically manufacturing a free kick out of nothing because the goalkeeper’s being crybaby about an opponent standing 5-10 yards away from him. Really, much closer to 10 by the time the goalkeeper was actually supposed to release the ball. It’s really weak refereeing. He comes across as a pushover. It sends the message that the referee will go out of his way to appease players who are being crybabies about little stuff; this doesn’t even help match control in the long run. If the referee is so scared about giving a simple corner kick, how is he going to handle an actually important decision? Finally, another takeaway from this clip is how lazy the referee was in terms of actually keeping track of time. I mean how do you get 16 seconds out of 8 unless you’re simply not trying at all? If his hand was in the air counting down after a real three seconds and the goalkeeper saw that, maybe the distribution would’ve happened quicker and this whole situation would’ve been avoided.
Direction that we're being given up north is that if a defender if in a potential position to interfere, stop the count (whether or not your hand is in the air yet or not), try to communicate with your voice, if it continues, just give the IFK.
Yeah, this is where we just fundamentally disagree. I think giving the corner kick here is where a referee is showing he's a pushover and catering to the actions of a single player. The attacker is manufacturing this out of nothing. Is the goalkeeper being too sensitive to his presence? Probably. Maybe even certainly. But you still don't get here without the attacker going out of his way to do something that has, at best, miniscule tactical value. Twenty other players are upfield with no expectation whatsoever that a corner kick is suddenly going to be awarded. No one thinks he's wasting time or has any reason to waste time. If you blow the whistle and, well, insist on a corner kick, you're going to at least have to manage upset teammates who are wondering what the hell you are doing. If for any reason they are already upset with you for anything they perceived you did to help make them down two goals before half time, you just threw a match on a puddle of gasoline for... what? Fidelity to the laws and to show you won't let the goalkeeper pull one over on you? Juice just isn't worth the squeeze for me here. You can still admonish or make clear to the goalkeeper that he won't get this dispensation again. You don't have to look weak and there are good ways to manage this where you get a positive result and gain credibility. But I think giving an unexpected corner kick for something that is certainly not a violation of the spirit of the 8 second rule isn't the best path in this or similar circumstances.
It’s interesting how incidents like this can show these vast differences between referees and how they officiate.