I was very pleased to see Stott hold up play prior to a Beckham free kick in the 87th minute last night after the Chivas USA fans pelted their own goal with streamers. It was such an easy decision to make and if it took 15 seconds for the stewards to clean it up, that would be generous. MK
I worked as a grade 8 for about 2 years. I gave up wearing the shirt out of frustration with the Laws, and the widely varying ways in which the Laws are applied by different referees. What you call "flexibility" in the LotG, I call ambiguity. Fans( I was a fan and a player long before I wore the badge) look for black and white, and get frustrated with gray. The "flexibilty" of the Laws is nothing but gray. Scott
Fans look for decisions that favor their team, not for black-and-white. They get frustrated not with gray, but with decisions that go against their team.
If more referees did this, and more security would remove fans that are disruptive, there would be a lot fewer of these incidents. So far, the two major ball incidents have gone against the offending fans, so there is some justice in the world. Even better would be to eliminate such occurences.
In some fairness, the situations are different in the sense that Stott had a stoppage where it was clear the free kick would be played into a goal area that was covered with streamers. I was glad to see him hold up the play to avoid the potential scenario that could play itself out, but especially with the discussion of this issue that has occurred recently it would have been shocking had he not done anything. The key difference, of course, is that he had a stoppage and an obvious opportunity to hold play while the issue was taken care of. In the Liverpool-Sunderland incident that started the discussion, I'm not sure when play would have been stopped or that an early stoppage would not also have penalized the team on the attack. While some have noted (I believe with sarcasm) that fans could litter there goal with balloons as a defensive measure, it becomes an even more effective tactic if you know that play will be immediately stopped. Stopping play beforehand is an easy call with the benefit of hindsight, but depending on when they first realized that the situation was developing it is understandable to decide not to break up an attack and hope, for example, that the cross goes near post or that the defense breaks the play up. And, yes, taking action against the fans responsible needs to be ramped up.