If you could change the LOTG, what changes would you make?

Don't say I didn't warn you about some of the loonie ideas that would come out of this thread!

PH

 

there are four bullet points in the latest version of the laws. Only one of them requires handling to be deliberate.

the others are only concerned with position of the hands and arms.

 

-Make handling not an offense anymore. It removes stupid arguments and nobody has to question if something was deliberate. Anything's legal. Deliberate, scoring with hands, carrying like it's rugby, all fair game.
-Make the goal area bigger, 12 yards out. Nobody is allowed in their from either team except the goalkeeper for any reason. He also can't leave. Penalty spot gets backed up to 18 yards.
-Goals are now 10 yards by 10 feet.
-Some sort of 2 point line for long distance goals. People love them and that'll make players practice it more. That means higher number of exciting goals. Everyone wins.
-Teams can play with as few as 1 player. You get red cards, that's your problem.

 

Early on in my refereedom, I had a U12 girl's game. Defender clears the ball out of the PA. As the ball sailed toward the center circle, that defender deliberately tripped an opponent in the PA. I blew the whistle, then told my grade 7 AR (there to mentor me) I think it is still a PK since it happened in the PA. But that doesn't seem fair to give a almost certain scoring play when the ball was at midfield. He agreed but the law is the law.

PK converted. Final score, 1-0. Spectators howled because "The ball has to be in the penalty area for it to be a penalty kick." In that case, I wish that were the case. But it isn't.

 

I forgot about my PK change. Rather than make it like KFTM, just make it a free kick from the spot of
the foul (goal area exception) and have everyone but the kicker and keeper outside the area.

It eliminates some of the sting of taking a foul and moving it to the PK spot and giving a huge advantage and basically forces teams to either take a shot from where they were fouled or pass the ball.

And I understand that some fouls would then be closer to the keeper but that’s the risk you would take fouling someone so close to goal.

 

The Laws change every year. Some of the more radical ideas here are just fun discussion, but I'm also seeing perfectly reasonable and feasible ideas.

Such as ...

This is exactly what I was planning to say.

If a substitute throws a shoe at an opponent, DFK where it hits. Any contact infraction -- DFK. Any non-contact infraction -- IFK.

Save the drop ball for injuries requiring a stoppage, dogs interfering with play, etc.

I also like the idea of taking all IFKs in the PA at the top of the arc.

On the stop/start clock -- the USL (then called the USISL) experimented with a 30-minute clock per half. Sounded good in theory, but it was awful. You never knew how long a half would be, and the time-wasting at the end of a game was excruciating. I don't mind the current Law at all.

On offside and VAR -- stop using VAR for offside calls except in obvious cases. Drawing some lines at when you think the ball was struck implies a level of precision that isn't really there. Let the AR make the call. If the ref thinks it's questionable, then don't blow the whistle and review as needed.

On the PA -- I've thought it would be interesting to use the 18 to show where the keeper can handle the ball but then use a slightly larger 6 (8? 10?) to mark the area in which a foul results in a PK. I have to admit that part of my reluctance to do much else is just the aesthetic.

Those changes weren't demanded? The passback rule in particular seems like a no-brainer.

 

I think they were all demanded in some fashion but not all in the same way.

Passback: was the vocal majority and a necessary change. I think it needs revoked for a year or so though to remind people why it was made a law in the first place.

Dogso-yellow: was the vocal majority but a somewhat ignorant one. In that the suspensions that came along with the red cards as part of the “triple punishment” weren’t an aspect of the laws but of tradition. That could have been corrected by leagues simply not suspending players for dogso.

VAR: was a vocal majority but it seemed to have more to do with goal line decisions and diving than anything. And neither of those is checked very carefully or “corrected” by VAR that often.

And the worst culprit was the “attacker handball”. This change was a vocal minority. That being professional leagues. There was not a lot of thought put into how this change was going to look in actual practice. And it’s been a train wreck ever since.

 

The LOTG do enough. Unfortunately, not all referees do. In my most recent weekend of working games, I didn't have any time-wasting to card, but I did give yellows for the other two things you mention. I gave a coach a YC for dissent. He decided to come criticize me after the match, so I gave him a 2nd YC and a red. The tools are there in the LOTG for refs to use. The culture is what needs to change, not the LOTG.

 

Tie-breakers: Play a game of 'Horse' (modified) instead of all the kicks coming from the penalty spot. First team picks a spot to kick from with a minimum distance requirement. Make or miss the team has to shoot from the same spot. Swap the order for the next kick. Allows for teams to use a player's skills and match them up against an opponent more like in a game as opposed to PKs.

No offside if the ball is last played by an attacker while inside 18 yards from the end line. This means once the ball advances inside the 18 yards of the end line (not just in the PA) that attackers could be more free to have better runs and movement. I think it would lead to more creativity in the area. The point of offside is to stop long ball play from up the field.

 

90% of the posts here are grassroots refs criticizing the best referees in the world...and you think THIS is the pointless discussion?!?

 

Thank you BigSoccer for the ignore feature.

 

My issue with it wasn't the suspension, it was with the illogic of it. A player committing a DOGSO in the box was given a red, for denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, and the attacking team got a PK. A PK in many (most?) cases was a better goal-scoring opportunity than the one that was denied. So the team still got an obvious goal scoring opportunity, yet the foul was still penalized with a red.

 

Well it's kinda like, if you break your neighbor's window with a baseball, you have to pay to replace it, and plus you're gonna get grounded.

 

Yup! Because the referees who post and read here can perhaps learn something from the performances of the top guys that could help them in their own games.
Nothing in this thread can help anyone. It's all the same tired old nonsense that gets trotted out from time to time. Some of it is also just attention getting.

Furthermore there are levels of pointlessness, and this is at the top.

PH

 

And if that had been the argument everyone came in with it would have made more sense. But that’s not how it went down.

 

But this is more like the baseball hit the window but didn't break it, and you're being punished as if it did break instead of just being warned not to do it again.

 

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I'm on all kinds of message boards. I see all kinds of "pointless" threads. It is too easy to just skip on by them.

 

I would not be in favor of the stop/start clock idea. To me, it would fall into the category of law of unintended consequences. In HS, I have had halves that have had 13-15 minutes of additional time. Regularly, 7-8 minutes. I like the way it is now.

 

This. No matter how much people say they want to see or play the whole game. They’re lying.

No one wants to see a game that’s already an hour and a half take two and a half hours of actual time.

 

• Start every match with a penalty shootout.
• Make the goal area smaller.
• Require at least 3 players on each side of the field.

 

Ah okay, I may have misunderstood. Here's what i was thinking:

The window is the scoring opportunity. Wouldn't have had to be replaced if you hadn't broken it (the DOGSO), so even though it's been replaced (by the PK) you get grounded (suspension).

 

I've

Yeah we already have hand-egg. An hour turns into better part of four.