Back story to this is that Racing usd to be Spanish First Division staple, now they are in the 3rd division and are broke. Their players haven't been paid in months and are fed up with the board and President of the club. This is the second leg of the Spanish Copa Del Rey quarterfinal and Real Sociedad won the first leg 3-1. Winner is scheduled to play Barca in the next round. The players threatened that if the current board and President didn't resign before this game that they would go on strike and not play the second leg. Needless to say no body resigned and the players decided to huddle together in midfield in unison as a show of solidarity and the Sociedad players kicked ball out of touch and since Racing refused to put the ball back into play, the match was abandoned. Not a bad days work for the referee...
Actually, the fans were supporting this move by the Racing players. Think about it, you haven't been paid since september 2013. It was time to do something about it. Hopefully the Racing president resigns.
These guys aren't volunteers. I don't care what my job is, if I stop being paid, I'm eventually going to stop working.
As long as they made it clear in the press that they were going to do it, I'd have no problem with it. But if I was taking my kid to a game, he'd be pumped, not to mention the costs. If the team did this unannounced, he'd be heartbroken and I'd be pissed.
Agree with you 100% Billy. According to this story, the players told the press/fans on Monday that they would not play if the board was in place. Also, in same story, it said that the fans stayed for over an hour, cheering on the players. By the way, lots of props to the Real players. They could have tried to score, but instead showed their support by just playing the ball around and kicking it out of bounds. Well done to them. Question: Was the referee required to talk to the Racing captain about the re-start or could he have just waited for "X" amount of time and abandoned the match?
Good luck finding anything explicit about what is "required" in such bizarre situations. But if a team isn't taking a restart, why wouldn't you talk to the captain before abandoning. (You wouldn't really want to abandon, for example, if the team wanted to take a caution for not restarting to make their point, and then intended to play after that -- there's no downside to asking the captain to have his team restart before pulling the trigger on abandonment.)
Here's how that conversation would go: Ref: Captain, so you were serious about not playing tonight? Captain: Yes, Sorry ref for wasting your time. Ref: Don't worry about it. After this is over lets get a beer. Tweet Tweet Tweet.
The team announced this well in advance. They held a press conference to announce the players' demand that the President resign because they haven't been paid. Spain is in a serious depression, with unemployment over 25%, so it's not surprising that their club is broke. Everybody knew in advance that this was the way this game was going to play out. (so to speak.) Don't over think it.
The other team actually, in my opinion, showed a good amount of support! They passed the ball around for a bit to let the moment happen and sink in, didn't attack, just played kickball. They then after about the perfect amount of time, kicked into touch and made it become an issue. I like how the ref handled it. Quick check that you really mean this and want this to happen, then tweet.
Why would you abandon or do anything on the word of the captain? The captain has no special authority and is barely mentioned in the LOTG. If I were abandoning it would be on a team officials word, preferably the head coach. If the ball had not been kicked into touch wonder what would have happened. U17 US-Brazil "played" to full time - I guess the second half would not have started as Racing had 2nd half kick off.
And what if the coach said "yes, we will continue playing"? It makes much more sense to ask the players what they intend to do, because they are the ones who will actually be doing it. And what better delegate of the players than the captain? The rules are vague. Just because the captain is not given any special authorities, he is a de facto representative of the team, a position granted to him by decades of tradition.
Also, as has been pointed out a time or two on this board in the past, the captain does have special rights and responsibilities in certain rules of competition at the professional level. In FIFA international competitions, the captain must lodge a protest on the field to the referee at the time of an incident if a post-game protest is to be entertained. No idea what it's like in Spain. But it really doesn't matter. As sjquakes08 articulates, it's really just common sense. How can you look at what transpired and not concur it was the right approach?
This was never going to happen. Real Sociedad weren't going to stand out there for 45 minutes doing nothing. Either they were going to kick the ball out of touch "in solidarity" with their opponents or they'd march down the field to score one goal and put the ball back in Racing Santader's proverbial hands. Given the first leg was 3-1, the easy option was the sporting and, in my opinion, right option. It's tempting to make comparisons to the U17 US-Brazil game, because we so rarely see stuff like this. But they were much different in reality given the points in the matches they occurred (and why they occurred). The referees in both situations handled themselves correctly.
I didn't say the decision was wrong, and I don't know the ROC so checking with the captain may be the correct as well as right thing to do. The I&G and LOTG barely mention captain so officially (outside ROC) they have no say. Common sense and acting in the best interest of The Game (not the match) should always be considered. When you do something that makes common sense yet isn't supported in the LOTG you are running a risk, period. What seems to make sense to you (and the team captain and maybe everyone there at the time) may not make sense once "committees" get involved. Again, as MassRef says this is rare and handled well in my opinion also except for not checking with a team official (unless covered in ROC).