Reading Football Club’s management team must have been concerned when their striker, Noel Hunt, lay motionless having crashed into the advertising boards after a challenge from a Barnsley defender, remembering that he had already been knocked unconscious in a match earlier this season.
After the game some Royals supporters expressed another concern; was the charge on Hunt legal in the eyes of the Laws of the Game?
Fans sometimes say to me, you always stick up for the referee and of course, like all referees,
I am bound by the FA Code of Practice which says I should not criticise another referee in public. There is another reason and that is because most decisions on the field of play are a matter of judgement.
In fact if we look at the challenge on Hunt, we will see that there are a number of judgements the referee had to make.
The ball was running towards the Barnsley goal line with the Barnsley defender attempting to shield it from Hunt who was following up at speed with the obvious intention of keeping it in play. The law says it is an offence to impede the progress of an opponent. The guidance to referees in Laws of the Game, clarifies impeding as moving into the path of an opponent to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction of an opponent when the ball is not within playing direction of either player.
So here is the first judgement the referee had to make: was the ball within playing distance? This distance can change. The ball can be further away from a player who is running after it than if he was stationary and still be in play. The guidance also says that a player has the right to their position on the field of play, so being in the way of an opponent is not the same as moving into his way but even if he deliberately places himself between the ball and the opponent, as the Barnsley player did, he does not commit an offence providing the ball is kept within playing distance. The player however must not hold the opponent off with his arms or body. This is sometimes a difficult judgement. Did the opponent run into the player or the player back into the opponent?
The Barnsley defender gave up all pretence of shielding the ball and charged Hunt instead. The law says that the player may charge his opponent fairly providing the ball remains within playing distance. If a player charges fairly but the ball is not within playing distance, the penalty is a direct free kick. The description of charging is given as ‘physical contact without using arms or elbows’. By this it is taken to mean the charge should be made with the upper arm kept close to the body against the opponent’s upper arm. If the referee’s judgement was that the charge by the Barnsley player was shoulder to shoulder and within playing distance he still had another judgement to make – was the charge reckless or made using excessive force.
'Reckless' means 'made without regard for the safety of his opponent or its
consequences'. Could the Barnsley player be blamed for the consequences of his challenge, which was to knock Hunt into the advertising boards? There is still one other judgement to be made. Was the charge made using excessive force or brutality? If the referee had judged that the charge was reckless it would have been have a direct free kick to Reading and a yellow card for the player but if he judged it as excessive force the player would have been sent off. Obviously his judgement was that it was neither of these because he gave a goal kick to Barnsley.
Would my decision have been different? Yes, but it wasn’t my judgement to make.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2009