Ref right? As #buryfc fans we’ve seen some bad penalties but what was Dieseruvwe thinking for Rochdale?! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/msk1ppaWVv— The Mighty Shakers Podcast (@TMS1885) February 17, 2026
For me, illegal. He's taken a run up to the ball and once there you cannot feint.. Running past it and not kicking for me is feinting. Either that or he's found the world biggest loophole and someone better close it fast.
Yeah, I am not convinced...feinting is to try and fool the Keeper, since he never kicked the ball, I'm not so sure that I agree.
Law 18 common sense. What does the game expect. Running up to a ball and just walking past it? Illegal
My only issue here comes from the phrasing of Law 14: “Once the referee has signalled for a penalty kick to be taken, the kick must be taken; if it is not taken, the referee may take disciplinary action before signalling again for the kick to be taken.” I think the law is sort of clear here that the kick must be taken again. The only question is should the kicker be cautioned. I suppose so: at a minimum you could argue he delayed the restart of play. But I’m not even sure that that’s mandatory. This is a weird situation that (shocker!) the IFAB never really considered and doesn’t have fully clear answers about.
Which, of course, is the problem. Because Law 14 also says: So this portion says that if a player feints before the ball is in play, regardless of whether or not a goal is scored the player is cautioned and the restart is an IFK. If you want to read everything literally, I think you do get to a place where the kick has to be taken. But then you probably can also get a place where the referee isn't supposed to sanction the violation until the kick is taken (nowhere in the Laws does it say you should stop play at the feint). The problem here is that the Laws more or less presume the kick is taken after a feinting violation. I'm not sure what I would have done in the moment, because I'm not sure I could have cited and processed this all in my head (plus even once I process it all, I don't get a firm answer).
Within the spirit of the law, the kicker never took the kick so was he really trying to deceive anyone??? Absolutely would have immediately asked for a "retake".
Well, I think you can credibly argue that his choice to not take the kick was due to him realizing he hadn't adequately deceived the kicker. It's not like he stumbled or pulled up with an injury. He messed around and by the time he got to the ball, it appears he didn't like what he saw.
totally fair point...but then again I can't pretend to know what he was thinking and I come back to doing what would be considered as "fair".
Ref seemed to be making a muck out of his movements with his arms before the kick. Maybe it is the camera angle in another video I saw of this, but why was he so close, and why was he waving his arms so much? One could think the kicker was confused and decided not to kick
From a "spirit" perspective -- a player could be doing this to try to gauge which way the keeper is going to dive. Or, just generally trying to play mind games. I'm not sure if that is what the player was actually trying to do here, but if this were allowed, I get the sense we'd start seeing it a lot more.
It seems to me there are a couple of issues here. The language is “feinting to kick the ball once the kicker has completed the run-up .” I don’t see a feint to kick the ball—he just runs past it. So I think the is a real question as to whether there is actually a violation here. (But when in the world was he thinking??) If he is deemed to have feinted to kick the ball, then I think the better analysis is that the offense is complete at that point, as Law 14 doesn’t say “and then kicks it.” I hadn’t tuned into the lack of a caution. I can’t square a non-caution IFK with Law 14. (And I keep coming back to “what was he king?” Did he think he heard a whistle so he didn’t kick it? Did the GK do something he didn’t expect, so he thought he’d start over?)
The referee is very focused on the players outside the penalty, facing them and yelling at them all the way through the penalty kick taker's approach to the ball. Perhaps he could claim he was distracted or confused by the referee yelling at them to wait after he had blown the whistle for the restart.
Exactly. If this was an actual question on your referee recertification exam, all of you would roll your eyes and ask why this would even appear on a test.
no kicker in their right mind is going to run the risk of a referee issuing a yellow card or calling an IFK against them here.
I'm pretty sure that somewhere, sometime, in the last 150 years someone else has done this. And the earth kept spinning on its axis. No, we don't have "the answer" here. But at the same time no one watched this and thought "ah, that's the trick!" I think it would be good to revise the feinting provision in Law 14 to perhaps clarify when it is punished and, of course, what the restart is if the feinting is sanctioned before the kick is taken. But this is not suddenly going to become a tactic that penalty takers want to avail themselves of. The result is that they will be punished for feinting; the only open referee question is whether or not they still get to kick or if they forfeit the kick (which, admittedly, is a *big* deal; but for anyone watching at home the default answer is you forfeit the kick... plus, is it worth the gamble even if you don't?).
and for the record while I would allow the kick to be taken, I am definitely carding that kicker for delaying the restart. Play stupid games and win the appropriate prize.
That actually makes perfect sense. Just like you wouldn't change a CK to a GK, just because an attacking player 'fouled' a defender just before the kick was taken.
So it’s the same as once you’ve awarded a free kick, you cannot change the restart because the ball is not yet in play. The referee in this case screwed up.
This is such BS. Great, they actually have an answer about it. So how about you put that in the law section, instead of putting it in a separate QA section that no one will look at and forcing the ref to make up a decision on the fly?
Bingo - I know this situation isn't very usual, but help everyone out by stressing what the call should be so that if this happens again, the ref, coach, and players should know what the right call it.