For the first time in a long while this weekend I had to consult my LOAF (Laws of Association Football to those of you who were never a referee.)
AS Roma were furious that the officials disallowed a quickly-taken corner during their 2-1 Serie A win over AC Milan.
David Pizarro went over to the corner arc where he nudged the ball with his boot before oddly wandering away. Fellow Roma midfielder Rodrigo Taddei then suddenly appeared from nowhere and started running with the ball towards the box with Milan’s players not concentrating.
The assistant referee started flagging and the referee blew his whistle before being surrounded by angry Roma players, who said the routine was perfectly legal.
Law 17 of my LOAF, which refers to corners, says: “The ball is in play when it is kicked and moves. The kicker does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.”
Many of the Italians (mostly Milan fans) I watched the match with wrongly thought the ball had to leave the corner arc to be in play. Others said it had to roll at least one revolution to constitute ‘moving’. TV replays showed Pizarro’s touch was slight but the ball did move and so strictly the routine should have been allowed. Law 17 actually says nothing about what ‘move’ means.
People say football is a simple game, but sometimes it is quite complicated.
For example the LOAF goes into great detail describing what would happen if a goalkeeper took a corner, booted it into his own area, chased after it and then picked it up. Bizarrely it also says you can’t score an own goal from a corner (ie. kicking it all the way to the other end of the pitch.) However, it is vague on words like ‘move’.
Furthermore, did you know you can’t be offside from a goal kick? Or that a goal is not awarded if a goalkeeper somehow manages to send a goal kick into his own net?
Mark Meadows in Milan, a former referee in the South East London Sunday League.
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4 comments so far
Great post. Wondering if you saw Liverpool’s game-winning goal against Reading yesterday? The lone Liverpool player standing offside as Gerrard took the free kick had no impact on the play, but I’m sure he was a distraction in the keeper’s line of site. And once the kick was taken and sent toward Torres in front of the goal, the offisde player crashed the goal. What if the keeper had punched the ball in his direction and he had scored? This certainly bends the offside rule, no?
- Posted by Mikehttp://startingeleven.blogspot.com/2008/ 03/starting-eleven-football-blog-roundup _17.html
I think the referee was correct to not allow this to happen. What the players did was fine in law, but they tried to circumvent the laws and trick their opponents into thinking the ball was in play. People want common sense from referees, and when players have to resort to making others look stupid it makes sense to put a stop to it. I hope both players involved were booked for unsporting behaviour.
- Posted by Stephen Smith, Senior County Referee, EnglandI found it disappointing that the referee called against the play as such fresh approaches in soccer really keeps the game interesting. In truth, the Roma players did nothing wrong and I have to politely disagree with Stephen that it was unsporting. If anything, it only helps the governing bodies to tighten the laws if they feel that it does not help the game.
- Posted by SBI think that it is entertaining.
It has happened during games that I have played in and if you aren’t switched on as a team then you are likely to be punished. You shouldn’t be let off the hook by a ref just because you weren’t concentrating while the other team got on with it.
Free-kicks are taken quickly when the wall is still forming and the keeper is setting himself - but this seems OK.
I think it is good for the game and draws on the players ability to think quickly.
- Posted by Neil