If you watch that pale imitation of Match of the Day, The Premiership on ITV, you may have seen a little dispute a couple of Saturdays ago about referee David Elleray's decision to penalise Jussi Jaaskelainen, the Bolton goalkeeper, for holding on to the ball for more than six seconds.
Jaaskelainen had picked up the ball and run to the edge of the penalty area where he met Newcastle's Alan Shearer. He danced around for a few more seconds and then finally kicked the ball upfield.
Unfortunately for him, David Elleray had already blown his whistle. Unfortunate also for Bolton, because the resultant free kick led to Newcastle scoring. Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager complained afterwards but then he always does. I doubt whether Premiership referees take much notice any more. 'I can't remember it happening elsewhere in the Premiership; it wouldn't be given against one of the bigger clubs'. Not quite true, because David James was penalised last season when he was still with Aston Villa.
Andy Townsend, ex-footballer and now part of the ITV panel, agreed with Sam Allardyce. He called it a
'ridiculous decision'. 'Jaaskelainen was not holding onto the ball to gain any advantage,' he declared, 'and therefore should not have been penalised'. That's the trouble with ex-footballers, living in the past, not keeping up to date with the changes in the laws. Years ago he would have had a point, for the law used to read, 'An indirect free kick will be awarded if the goalkeeper in his own penalty area, indulges in tactics, which in the opinion of the referee, are merely designed to hold up the game and thus waste time and so give an unfair advantage to his own team'.
This meant that if a team was, say, four nil down and the goalkeeper wasted
time he could hardly be said to be gaining an unfair advantage for his own team and so would go unpunished. A quite different proposition if his team were one goal up and minutes to play.
In 1997 that whole wordy paragraph was reduced to 'wastes time'. Now, even that doesn't appear, because it's superfluous when the goalkeeper has just six second to get rid of the ball. It doesn't matter whether his side are four nil down or one nil up, he still has the same six seconds. It was one of those changes made to aid consistency of decisions or, others might claim, to take away the referee's ability to use his judgement or common sense.
David Elleray therefore had no choice. When interviewed on television, he said that he counted up to nine and when Jaaskelainen had not released the ball he had no alternative but to blow the whistle. The television company replayed the incident with a timer and David Elleray was spot on - it was nine seconds. Of course people might say, if it is supposed to be six seconds why did he wait until nine. The answer is that it is not possible to look at the watch for the six seconds, you would never see what else is going on. The only way to do it is to count.
At the first meeting of Reading Referees after this law was introduced, we asked all members present to sit on their left hand. Sound a little weird but of course that's the arm most people wear their watch and we didn't want any peeking. We then asked them to count under their breath and when they reached six to raise the right arm. We had responses from four and half seconds to nine seconds.
This shows it is difficult to be too precise and most referees would err, like David
Elleray, on the side of caution.
It also explains why, although not unheard-of as Sam Allardyce claims, it is still a rare occurrence.
Dick Sawdon Smith