The recent Reading - Brighton game at the Madejski Stadium has certainly
caused a flurry of questions to come my way. The ones most frequently asked
have been about the quickly taken free kick, that led to Brighton's first goal.
Supporters seem to think that somehow it was unfair and the referee shouldn't
have allowed it. 'Brighton should have waited for the referee's whistle' has been a
constant cry.
The whistle is in many ways the most powerful symbol of a
referee. The other week I related Sir Jimmy Young's referee-hating friend's
description of a referee as ' a bloody fool with a whistle and a notebook'.
I am the proud owned of an FA tie, presented after qualifying as an FA Referee
Instructor. Woven above the three lions is, you've guessed it, a whistle, and yet
nowhere in the laws of the game is there reference to a whistle. I have even
asked groups of experienced referees how many times is a whistle mentioned
and seldom does anyone give the right answer. This is because the whistle has
become accepted as the referee's main method of communication.
But surely, others have complained, the referee is bound to give some sort of
signal. This I would agree, except the laws have become slightly ambiguous
since the re-writing in 1997.
Regular readers of this column will know that I am
very critical of the way the laws were rewritten and here is a classic example.
Previously the law used to read 'The referee will signal for the recommencement
after all stoppages'. This seems pretty clear to me but it was altered to 'The
referee re-starts the match after it has been stopped'.
Apart from being a totally
unnecessary change it is obviously incorrect. The law for free kicks says 'the
ball is in play when it is kicked and moves' so it is clearly not the referee but the
kicker who re-starts the match. Accepting that the law still means what it used to
say, there is no indication what the signal should be. It can be a wave of the arm,
a nod of the head, a quick word such as 'OK' or 'off you go'. We actually advise
new referees not to use the whistle when it is not necessary as it devalues it's
impact.
Others have pointed out that the Reading players were not ten yards from the
ball when the kick was taken and queried if this was not a breach of the law for
free kicks. They are quite right in as much as Law 13 requires members of the
offending team to be 9.15 metres, or if you pace it out 10 yards. However in
'Advice on the Application of the Laws of the Game', a companion book to the
Laws of the Game for referees, it says 'The referee has discretion to disregard
this requirement to enable a free kick to be taken quickly'.
On a similar theme other supporters have suggested to me that the Reading
defenders should have been given time to organise themselves, possibly form a
wall. Again the Advice booklet covers this. 'In order to recognise the spirit of
the law relating to free kicks', it says, 'referees are reminded that there must be
no undue delay in allowing the non-offending side to take a free kick. Law 13
does not justify a referee allowing the offending side an opportunity to
consolidate its defence'.
I think therefore that it can be seen that the referee did not unduly favour the
Brighton forwards. He acted within the spirit of the law by allowing the free
kick to be taken quickly.
I'm sure that if the incident had happened at the other
end I wouldn't have received such a lot of questions. Instead the supporters
would have been congratulating the Reading players on their initiative and quick
thinking.
Dick Sawdon Smith