Apparently because the coach of Levekusen (Schmidtt) was sent to the stands and refused to go. Referee Zwayer pulled his crew off the field into the locker room. The players joined him about five minutes later. More to come... Thx, Jay! 68' stoppage of game for roughly 10' Edited to correct facts/spelling on the fly...
Bundesliga match halted when sent-off manager refuses to leave the field...so the referees do instead https://t.co/Jsat360ZOW— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) February 21, 2016
Full video with commentary: http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/referee-gets-fed-up-walks-off-in-middle-of-bayer-lever-1760416708 Clip of the walk off: https://streamable.com/dha4 Clip of the play in question: https://streamable.com/76fm (All via Reddit) Edit: lots of comments elsewhere seem to be missing that a foul was called and there was a quick restart. That's what I'm seeing at least.
Also, a little odd that the referee and 4th official didn't go talk to the coach directly, but I understand why. He was summoning the ref over. "No thank you, you've already been dismissed" is a pretty good response to that.
To recap: Two players challenge for the ball near a penalty area. Perhaps they both thought they were fouled. Ball dribbles away a little bit, as has happened tens of thousands of times. Referee calls a foul for the defending team, as has happened tens of thousands of times. Fouled team player stops ball with his hand and takes a quick free kick a few meters from the place of the foul, as has happened tens of thousands of times. Fouled team goes upfield and scores, as has happened thousands of times. Other team aggrieved over either the foul call or the location of the restart, neglecting the fact that had the mirror image of the situation occurred and the referee had stopped their quick kick under identical circumstances they would have been made about the referee's "exact blade of grass" refereeing and the only real reason they are upset is that a goal happened right away. In fact had a goal not been scored nobody would have noticed anything, and in fact had someone naively made a clip of the restart and came here with it asking about why the referee allowed the restart he would been laughed out of the forum, but I digress. Anyhoo, manager goes too far, gets dismissed, refuses to go, referee does the only thing he can, order restored 15 minutes later. The only things left to argue about I suppose are: does time keep ticking when play is suspended and should 15 minutes have been added, or does it stop during a suspension like that, and should the referee had known a goal was about to be scored and done the exact blade of grass thing?
The coach definitely does not "summon" the referee like that when he's already been sent off. I don't see the issue with the original foul or why he was so fired up to begin with. Just poor acting by the coach all around. I'm a bit shocked the referee pulled off the whole crew without at least walking closer to the coach and making it very clear he had to go NOW.
Both the match official and the manager handled this poorly. It was a foul. Man up and eject the man yourself. Don't send the captain to do your dirty work. The 4th or the ref should have ejected him.
It was clear from the referee's body language that the coach was being dismissed. Sure, the referee could have gotten closer for the actual dismissal (and arguably should have), but the message was clear. Once the manager realized he was dismissed, he tried to force a confrontation with the referee. I suspect that the captain was sent over there to convey that if the coach doesn't leave, the match won't restart. I'm curious why the fourth official was not more involved in sending the coach on his way. As a referee, I would want my fourth to help at this point, because it makes no sense for the referee to go over there simply to be abused by a coach who has already been dismissed.
I also agree the 4th and stadium security should have handled this. Taking the sides off the pitch is petulant and arrogant.
The coach (Schmidt) claimed the ball was still moving when the free kick was taken. The clip cuts away at that moment, so it isn't clear. It looks like the player is putting his hand on the ball to set up to take the free kick, but it's not clear what actually happened. Supposedly the fourth agreed with Schmidt (yeah, right).
From a referee perspective, the thing that bothers me is that the referee did not wait for his assistants before heading off the field. As for the mechanics of sending off, even though I'll never ref in a stadium any bigger than a high school, but I know at least to make such things obvious and visible so that everyone in the whole place knows what Is going down. Confusion in this case, as it usually does, does not reflect well on the referee crew.
At the professional level once technical staff has been dismissed it is up to stadium security to get them out of there, not anyone on the referee team. The only thing the 4th should do is confirm with the referee liaison and/or stadium security that the coach has indeed been dismissed at which point it is their job to drag him to the locker room. In these rare situations I will also encourage the captain or players of the dismissed coach to get their coach out of there. If I'm playing and my coach refused to leave I'd knock him out and throw him in a trash can before forfeiting. I'm a bit shocked the referee team came back out to finish the game. If I dismiss anyone and they refuse to leave within 30 seconds, I'm gone and I'm not coming back. At this level it is shocking that stadium security didn't handle this more quickly.
This is the part that surprised me. If there's a level of disrespect and misconduct so blatant that it requires the referees to leave the field, that's all folks.
Help me understand why the 4th didn't just tell security to remove him. If I'm the referee and I'm in a power struggle with a petulant coach, I'm going to take some personal satisfaction in seeing his rear end dragged off the field. And if security wouldn't do their job, then I walk (with my team at my side) and I'm definitely not coming back. The whole thing was weird.
He made it pretty clear at the beginning of the clip that he was being dismissed. He did pretty much everything he could have. The coach refused to go. He even got the captain involved. What more could he have done? This isn't Sunday league ball. The coach knows exactly what he is doing and he wants to make a scene. Quibble with the mechanics, but I thought the referee gave him every opportunity to restart. You can't just abandon a professional for that reason, so you just leave and force all the pressure on the coach.
In my first year as a referee, I had a coach come onto the field and refuse to leave. I abandoned the match. The only question the committee asked me was why I didn't show him a red card. Sigh. Several weeks later, I found out that this was not the first time that coach had pulled the same stunt and this was a former NASL player from Europe. I don't recall ever seeing him coaching again.
I hope you terminated instead of abandoned Honestly though, the way I instruct when asked is: Abandoned: uncontrollable issues - weather, field, etc Terminated: human being related
I don't think that quite captures the traditional distinction, which was reflected in the "old" ATR: Even the "new" ATR abandoned the the paragraph about abandoning and the following note. And, of course, the distinction is not within the LOTG or I&G. In other words, I think it is a distinction no longer worth worrying about. There are far better angels and heads of pins to fight about. YMMV.
Agree with that. We have enough troubles getting referees to just write reports much less doing them correctly, which is why I don't understand why they are given the option of the two as they essentially mean the same thing.
So maybe an important point is that technically if you terminate a match, the competition committee can declare a winner. In case that coach that would not leave when dismissed was losing 6-1 with 3 minutes left. Whereas if the game was abandoned, the committee can only replay the match. That might be a pretty big distinction in case a coach knowing the difference. Agree that it is not worth losing sleep over, but if some coach wins an appeal because the ref "abandoned" the game because he would not leave as opposed to "terminated" it. That would grind my gears.
Assessed a U-16 boys semi-final at youth regionals which went to overtime. With two minutes left in OT and the score now 2-4, a fight broke out between the parents which spilled onto the field. The referee terminated the game, over the objections of the winning coach, who wanted to restart the game and play out the final 90 seconds. He was afraid that the tournament committee might do something like declaring a double forfeit. No one else wanted to play another 90 seconds. It was 116 degrees in the shade that afternoon, and no shade.