"Ref, why?" When players are baffled by their own poor conduct

Games 7-8, 2021-22

Twenty minutes into a boys' U19 game, and I blow for offside against the home team's number 15. His reaction is to kick the ball far out of play, and so - predictably enough - I show him a yellow card. He looks at me all hurt and confused, like a rabbit whose previously loving owner has just shown him a pot of simmering stock and invited him to take a seat on the chopping board. "What was that for?"

Every week, players demonstrate how clueless they are about the laws of the game. Rather than sitting down to read them (you may be unsurprised to know that they are available for free on the global information network), they prefer to learn by a slow process of accumulating cautions. 'Delaying a restart' is a particularly common bone of contention, because for some reason players think that prodding the ball away from an opponent before they have the chance to take a throw-in or free-kick is absolutely normal practice and totally permissible. Perhaps they've seen it go unpunished on TV a few thousand times (thanks again to our wonderful pro refs for setting a great example for the amateur game. See also: Dissent).

Here are some other aghast reactions for yellow cards, from this one weekend alone:

Example 2: Unsporting Conduct. Two teenagers square up and exchange loud and rowdy words with each other, a sight as common in this city as pigeons shitting on a window ledge...

The Moaners in the Snow

Game 9, 2018-19

It's snowed all morning, and I hold off leaving the house in case there's a late call to postpone the match, a lunch-time kick-off in the City B League. It isn't that I necessarily want the game to be called off, but the prospect of several hours of unexpected free time on a Sunday afternoon has its attractions.

Just about playable, with help from a shovel.

So because I leave the house later than usual, and cycle at first to the wrong ground, I end up arriving cold and wet with just half an hour until kick-off. There's half an inch of snow on the grass pitch, but both teams are eager to play. "Have you got an orange ball?" I ask after looking at the surface, which is moist underneath. They do. Will they promise to play sensibly and help me out with touchline calls? Oh, of course.

Things start gently enough as the players adjust to the conditions. There are numerous short passes that get stuck in the snow, and several players from both sides flail for balance and slide around on their arses. I wonder whether or not it was wise to let them loose. The home team goes 1-0 up after 15 minutes with a penalty for a full-on foul by the away team's captain. He's the only one who bothers to complain, citing the word "body", which you hear a lot. It translates as, "Football is a physical sport, so what's wrong with me recklessly charging into a player and flattening him?"

Time-wasting and dissent - new laws for Fifa to consider

Happens too rarely - yellow for time-wasting

"Before taking a throw-in, free kick or goal kick, adjust your sock. And then adjust your other sock," a professional coach I used to work with in the US once told my eldest daughter's team. It was advice on defending a narrow lead in a recreational league. The players were 14 years old.

Like the perpetual sore of dissent, tedious time-wasting has become deeply embedded in football at all levels. There are sanctions to punish both, but they are not strictly applied because referees do not want to look overly officious for handing out serial yellow and red cards. The more that dissent and time-wasting have become an accepted staple of football, the harder they've become to punish.

Right after this summer's World Cup, the editor of Germany's kicker magazine, Rainer Holzschuh, wrote a series of proposals to counter time-wasting and unsporting conduct. Here's what he wrote in the July 16th. edition:

Big news: there's no Law-endorsed right to organise a wall

Game 15, 2017-18

The home team is leading 1-0, and there are two minutes to go in this boys’ U15 game. After a six-player stramash in the arc outside the penalty area, I award a free-kick against the home team directly in front of their goal. They’ve been in the mood to moan all through the second half, encouraged by their collectively vociferous coaches and parents, but then they quickly realise that they’d better set about organising their wall.

Wall organised - but be quick about it

One of their players has already placed himself right in front of the ball, effectively neutralising the chance of a quick free-kick. There’s no punishment for this (if the kick is taken and he moves to block the ball, then I can I give a yellow card and award a re-take), and the only thing I can do is ask the away team if they would like me to mark out a wall. They duly say, “Yes”, and so I tell them to wait for the whistle.

Analysing IFAB's June report - the general verdict: Yes!

The report last month by the International Football Association Board on forthcoming trials and discussions with regard to the Laws of the game was met with customary scepticism by an instinctively conservative football press. Change? We can't be doing with that! And yet IFAB has been slated down the years for being exactly that - too stuck in its ways to make anything besides fussy, pernickety adjustments to the Laws that have served to confuse rather than clarify.

Elleray - progressive report (pic: Fifa.com)

All that has changed under the tutelage of former referee David Elleray, who has been prepared to listen and discuss. He sees the need for change, while accepting that this involves a long process of trial and debate. The report contains some excellent suggestions. First, let's take a look at some of the laws that will be tried out in FIFA tournaments and offer simple verdicts - Yes, No or Maybe:

1. Showing the red card (RC) and yellow card (YC) to team officials for irresponsible behaviour.

Verdict: Yes. There is no good reason not to do this. Coaches don't always understand the three-stage system of verbal warnings leading to dismissal. Most have never even heard of it.

'Spin on this!' - When the ref strikes back

Game 54, plus tournament, 2016-17

Should referees ever lose their calm and take the low road? Absolutely not. Not ever. Which doesn't mean to say that it won't happen. On Saturday I felt, for the first time in over eight years of refereeing, that I didn't need to take the shit being thrown at me any more. It didn't help. In fact it almost lead to me being physically assaulted.

A festival, a jamboree, a day-long celebration
of the game and decent sporting values!

It's the time of year for corporate six-a-side tournaments, and I was one of several refs at an all-day jamboree spread out over eight mini-fields. It's also a good chance to exchange views and experiences with colleagues in the referees' tent, and the pay's generally a lot better than at our officially sanctioned games. The downside is that the tournaments follow a pattern as predictable as an unregulated teenage party when the parents are out of town for the weekend.

Things start peacefully at 9am. The sun's out and everyone's in a good mood, apart from the team in green, already marked out in the first 13-minute game of the day as serial moaners....

Letter to IFAB, Part Four - The 35-yard-line

I'm including parts four to six of my Letter to the International Football Association Board as they all involve the (re-)introduction of the 35-yard-line. No, don't close the page - there is plenty to discuss here. It is certainly worth experimenting with a 35-yard line because it has the potential to radically improve the game in the following areas: offside, corner kicks, penalty kicks, and as a game-decider in cup ties.

How to end blatant encroachment
like this - use a 35-yard line.

FIFA technical director Marco van Basten's recently suggested law changes included using 35-yard line shootouts rather than spot-kicks to settle drawn cup ties. Unfortunately, it was dismissed without thought by most commentators simply because it was lumped in with van Basten's wacky idea to abolish offside.

Penalty shootout deciders are retained solely on the grounds that there's "no better alternative", yet actually testing out another method is barely considered. It's a shame, because penalties are more a test of nerve than skill, while the 35-yard shootout demands dribbling, shooting and technical abilities, and gives the goalkeeper a 50% chance of making a save. 

Letter to IFAB, Part Two - Allow a subbed player to re-enter the game

My letter to IFAB made the following proposal on substitutions. More flexibility in this area seems a logical progression given current squad sizes, the increased number of players allowed on the bench, and the physical demands of the modern game.

Demonstration by numbers -
liberalise the substitution laws now! 

The rule already exists in amateur games at the lower levels of the German amateur game (where all substituted players may return to the game), and in the US college game - any subbed player may return to the game once in each half. That's a little over the top because it can make for too many stoppages, but most coaches don't use it excessively for the obvious reason that it's too disruptive to a team's rhythm.

The German FA recently made another move in this direction, with immediate effect, stipulating that in all men's and women's FA cup games teams may use a fourth substitute during extra-time. This will
almost certainly become the international standard in coming years, because there's nothing to speak against it.

2. SUBSTITUTIONS

Proposal: A player who has been substituted may return to the game once if all substitutes have been exhausted. Limit: one player per team.

Reason: Why should a team that suffers an injury after using all its substitutes be penalised by playing a man short?

How it will work: A single player on each team will be allowed to return to the field once during the course of the game to replace a team-mate, if that team has already used its allocation of three substitutes.

Consequences: Fairness and tactical flexibility. To avoid exploiting this new law for time-wasting, a period of one minute will be automatically added to the game for any such substitution.

Discuss, reject, ignore, tear apart etc. Suggestions 3-6 will follow in due course.

Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022. 

What happens if the ref swears back?

Game 27, 2016-17

"November seems odd," Tom Waits once sang, and the gravel-voiced troubadour would have had his suspicion confirmed if he'd shown up to watch this gravel-pitch game on a still, grey, dying day in the year's eleventh month.

Failed sobriety test
(pic: Referee Tales)

The first thing I notice is how crooked the freshly painted touchlines are. I'm about to ask the groundsman if he can quickly re-do the goal-line, at least, when I smell his breath. It's 1pm on a Sunday afternoon and he's already shit-faced - very slow to move and barely present in thought. I stick with what we have (see pictures) for fear of getting something worse.

The two teams are second and third bottom, but both are near the top of the Fair Play table. Only one red card between them all season. Should be a quiet game, I think. Stupidly.

The two defences are just as wobbly as the touchlines...