Impeding an opponent can be legitimate

It was one of those occasions when, as a referee, you feel you would like to stop the game and take all the players over to one side of the pitch where you would have perhaps a flipchart, so you could give an instant lesson on the laws of the game. 

An incident had happened at one end of the field of play for which I had given a free kick and yet when, in the players eyes, the same thing happened at the other end, I waved away their appeals for a free kick. It's not often you get two versions of similar behaviour by players so close together but it is difficult, if not impossible, to explain your reasons to players in the middle of a competitive match. On second thoughts a video recording of the incidents would probably be better to illustrate why one was an offence and the other perfectly legitimate.

At one end of the field a loose pass meant that the ball was going to run out of play over the touch line. One of the attacking side, however, put on a sprint to try and catch it before it could cross the line. A defender spotted this and ran across in front of him using his body as an obstruction and, although not making bodily contact, impeded the attackers progress preventing him reaching the ball. There was an uproar when I gave an indirect free kick against the defender, instead of the throw-in he was expecting. 

That disapproval of my decision was amplified within a few minutes, when a player of the other team put his body between the ball and an opponent, carefully shielded it and allowing it to run over his goal line. There were shouts of disbelief, 'What about just now,' they wanted to know, 'when you gave them a free kick'. 

Of course, although they couldn't see it or didn't want to see it, the difference in the two incidents was very simple. In the first case, the defending player had no interest in playing the ball, in fact he couldn't have played it if he had wanted to. The ball was too far in front of him. In the second instance, although the player had no interest in playing the ball, merely wishing to allow it to go out of play for a goalkick, it remained close enough for him to have played it if he had
wanted to. 

A player is quite entitled to shield the ball from an opponent,
providing he remains within playing distance. In these circumstances it is considered that he is playing the ball. 

Mind you, you won't find any of this in LOAF, the book that gives us the Laws of Association Football. That merely says 'An indirect free kick is awarded if, in the opinion of the referee, a player impedes the progress of an opponent'. Before they rewrote the Laws in 1997, there was another clause which read in a rather long-winded sentence, 'If a player covers up the ball without touching it in an
endeavour not to have it played by an opponent, he obstructs but does not infringe the law because he is already in possession of the ball and covers it for tactical reasons whilst the ball remains in playing distance'.

 Inexplicably all this was left out in the rewriting but it is included in another book available only to referees which is called Advice on the Application of the Laws of the Game. This book makes it quite clear that to legitimately impede an opponent, a player must remain within playing distance of the ball. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to explain all this to the players at the time, but would they have listened? Do players ever listen?

Dick Sawdon Smith

© R Sawdon Smith 2003

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