There were two incidents on Match of the Day and Match
of the Day 2 two weekends ago that illustrated a part of the law that’s not fully understood and will always lead to differences of opinion. Certainly the one on the Sunday game Everton against Tottenham
Hotspur had both managers giving different views at their post match interviews.
'Blatant penalty' said Harry Rednapp agreeing with the referee’s decision in favour of Spurs.
'Shouldn’t have been a penalty' said David Moyes, 'it was just two players coming together at speed.'
It was certainly true that Tony Hibbert of Everton and Spur’s Wilson Palacios clashed when chasing after a ball played into the Everton penalty area. What made it a foul was the fact that the Spurs player was a little bit faster to the ball and, when they clashed, Hibbert’s shoulder charge hit him in the back crashing him to the ground. Palacios’s injury was severe enough that he had to be carried off on a stretcher.
There was no suggestion that Hibbert intended to hurt him or to charge him in the back. In fact had he been a fraction quicker, it would have been a fair shoulder to shoulder charge. This is the part that many fans and players, not to say managers, fail to understand; the direct free kick or penalty kick offences do not have to be intentional to be penalised, except of course for handball and spitting. It not what Hibbert intended, it’s what actually happened. Tough but at least it means that the referee doesn’t have to be a mind reader.
The other incident which happened in the Manchester City v Chelsea match was something different but the question of intent was still the talking point. As the ball bounced in front of Ricardo Carvalho of Chelsea, he lifted his foot very high to play it as City’s Carlos Tevez charged in after the ball. Chelsea’s Italian manager, Carlo Ancelotti, felt that Carvalho had played the ball cleanly and was dismayed at the subsequently awarded free kick to City from which they scored. There were some who thought that Carvalho was only guilty of dangerous play, which is punished by an indirect free kick.
'Dangerous play' in the Laws of the Game is the classic unintentional foul. Take for instance the overhead kick. Carried out very often by attackers resulting in some spectacular goals but also occasionally by a defender to clear the ball when facing his own goal line. Most of the time this is perfectly acceptable but every now and then the kicker is in close proximity of other players. This is when it becomes dangerous, when it threatens injury to someone (including perhaps the player himself) or when it prevents the opponent playing the ball from fear of injury. It becomes an offence even if the danger has been caused by the movement of opponents over which the player has no control. So he might start the high kick when no one is around but if an opponent or opponents then come into the danger area, it becomes an offence.
This was very much the case with Carvalho, Tevez came into the danger area after he had raised his foot high but there was one other aspect to this. Dangerous play as an offence involves no physical contact between the players, once there is physical contact the action then become punishable by the direct free kick. That is exactly what happened in the City/Chelsea game, Carvalho’s dangerous high kick became a direct free kick instead of an indirect free kick when he caught Tevez in the middle of the back. He hadn’t meant to do it, an unintentional foul and as far as Carvalho was concerned unavoidable as it was Tevez’s movement that created it, but it was a foul all the same.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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