What's the point of re-taking an illegal goal kick?

Game 14, 2018-19

There's one football Law that I dislike in particular. A given team is taking a goal kick, and the goalkeeper, say, plays it short to a defender on the edge of the area. There is no attacking player anywhere near the defender - that is, the opposing team are not part of the current craze for pressing, or counter-pressing, or whatever the 1001 Apostles of Klopp are calling it this week. 

The defender receives the ball just inside the penalty area, or on the line of the penalty area. The law says that you have to blow the whistle and make them take it again. The same if it's a free-kick taken from within the penalty area. So you're faced with the following choices:

1. You blow and insist on the re-take. Everyone sighs, some might utter an epithet. Bloody hell, ref, does it matter? Such a trivial stoppage for, really, nothing. The Germans have a great word for it - kleinlich, which covers petty, fussy, pedantic and nit-picking all in one. Sometimes Bundesliga refs will be marked down in kicker magazine for being kleinlich, and to me there's no greater criticism. I think I'd rather be called useless, inept, blind and corrupt.

2. You don't blow, and there's every chance that an opposition player will throw up their arms and shout, "Ref! The ball never left the area!" This makes you look useless, inept etc. In short, it makes you look like you don't know the rules, and that's almost as bad as being called kleinlich. No referee likes to be caught out on a rule. And if there's a real downside to being a ref, it's when you're watching a game on TV and someone turns to you and says something like, "Hey Ian, you're a ref - how high exactly is a corner flag allowed to be?" (Most refs will confirm this happens a lot. If we're not sure of the answer we say the same that we tell kids when they ask us the meaning of a word we don't know - "If you care so much, look it up!")

"Dear Mr. Collina..."

It only makes sense to blow for this offence if the defender - under pressure from an opponent - runs into the area to prevent an attacker getting to the ball first. Or if the attacker has encroached and made contact with the ball. Even then, the 'punishment' is hardly a punishment, because the re-take is not penalising the team that's committed the infringement. This Law works as it currently stands in games played by very young kids, who don't always have the strength to kick the ball out of the penalty area. Otherwise, it's an anomaly.

Solution 1: An indirect free kick in favour of the attacking side would be a much more appropriate penalty, to be taken where the defender touched the ball. The attacker is rewarded for putting pressure on the defender, who is in turn penalised for encroachment. If the attacker has encroached, likewise an indirect free-kick for the defending team - they may at least gain a few yards. If encroachment is clearly being used to waste time, punish with a yellow.

Solution 2: Adjust the law to allow defenders and attackers alike to receive the ball in the penalty area, stipulating only that an opponent must be at least 10 yards from the ball when the kick is taken.

In last night's game, I let it go a couple of times. The game was a friendly between two very good teams who play at a couple of levels above my normal jurisdiction. No one raised a protest of any kind, but then that was true for almost the entire game, despite some bruising challenges and a few close offside calls. Again, I really enjoyed the run-out. Either I've been lucky the past two or three weeks, or there's been a cultural sea-change ushered in by a raft of New Year's resolutions pledging sanity and calm. Or, I've died and gone to Referee Heaven, where there are no cards, no quibbles, and no accusations of being kleinlich- it's a place I could easily get to like. 

Final score: 4-3 (no cards) 

Want to read more? 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.