It wasn’t only EURO 2008 that led to me being asked questions about the laws before the season started. Reading had a pre-season friendly with MK Dons and two incidents required a little explanation.
The first thing that happened was that Reading striker Leroy Lita was shown a yellow card for some misdemeanour. This seemed to cause some surprise because a few years ago, referees had an unwritten arrangement to avoid giving red or yellow cards in pre-season friendlies. If a player behaved in such a way that would warrant a card being shown, the referee would give a signal to the bench and they would substitute the player. I remember refereeing Manchester United’s under-16 team in a pre-season game and one of their old first team players, Wilf McGuinness, was in charge of the squad. ‘If any of the boys get out of line,’ he said, ‘give me the nod and I’ll have him off.’
This in some ways would appear to be a perfectly reasonable arrangement and in this instance both teams were perfectly behaved, no doubt trying to impress. But this was not always the case and older players would unfortunately take liberties, knowing that they would not receive a card however badly they behaved.
A few seasons ago, for example, I was invited to a hospitality box at the Madejski Stadium for a pre-season friendly against Southampton, still in those days, very much a Premiership club. Part way through the match, it was obvious, even from the elevated position of the hospitality box that the great Matt
Le Tissier gave the referee an offensive mouthful. Had it not been a friendly with this arrangement in place, it would have resulted in him being sent off and shown a red card. This would also have meant that he would have been suspended from some games when the season started. Instead the referee signalled to the bench and Le Tissier was replaced without a stain on his character.
This cosy arrangement obviously came to the notice of the FA, for a few seasons ago all referees received notification that this had to stop and that misconduct in friendly matches must be treated in the same way as any competitive game and probably a good thing too. As any referee will tell you, ‘There’s no such thing as a friendly game.’
The other instance that raised questions was when MK Dons fielded a great number of substitutes, more than the six it was believed permissible for friendlies. In fact no regulations were broken. If we take the situation for games played as part of a registered competition, only three substitutes may be used. The law, however, allows any number of substitutes to be used for friendlies, providing the teams agree and the referee is informed beforehand. What has confused the issue is that there is another ruling for international matches.
You might recall that when Sven Goran
Eriksson was in charge of the England team, he invariably put out almost a fresh eleven for the second half. Instead of the FA saying to
Eriksson, ‘Look Sven we don’t want you to do that as we feel it devalues the game, especially for the supporters,’ they got the International FA Board to make it law that only six substitutes could be used in international A matches.
One small point on substitutions you may have noticed this season, is that in the Carling Cup Competition, clubs can now nominate seven substitutes. They can still only use three but they have seven to choose from instead five as previously. Competitions have the option of three to seven to be nominated and Sir Alex Ferguson has regularly campaigned for the Premiership
allowance to be extended to seven. I suppose it gives managers more choice and perhaps the opportunity to give hope and experience to fringe players.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2008