The biggest talking point in football last week was the winning goal in the Porto v Arsenal Champions' League match. I have to admit that I didn’t watch the match on television and only saw the end of the incident later on the news. However it seems to me that there are two separate questions here.
Firstly, was the referee right in giving the foul and secondly, was he right to allow the kick to be taken in the way it
was? The indirect free kick was awarded when Arsenal goalkeeper. Lukasz Fabianski picked up the ball after it was allegedly kicked back to him by Sol Campbell who was shielding the ball back to his goalkeeper. I didn’t see what happened but have heard various accounts.
One story is that the ball bounced off Campbell’s shin, whilst another version is that Campbell gave the ball a final tap to ensure it reached the keeper. The law says; ‘An indirect free-kick is awarded if the goalkeeper in his own penalty area touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately kicked back to him by a team mate’. The important words are ‘deliberately kicked’, so a bounce off the shin might not seem to be deliberate or a kick. After all players are entitled to pass the ball back with their head, their chest and even their knees. But of course there is only one opinion that matters, and the referee decided it was a deliberate kick.
So if we turn to the taking of the free kick, which I did see, let me describe the scene. After the referee stopped the game, Fabianski was holding the ball. The referee marched up to him and took the ball off him and handed it to Porto’s Micael and then turned away, it appeared, to talk to Campbell.
Whilst the referee had his back to Micael, the Porto player put the ball down and kicked it sideways for his team mate Radamel to run onto and easily put it past the Arsenal goalkeeper, who was still making his way back to his goal line.
The Law requires at a free kick that all opponents be at least 9.15 metres (10 yards) from the ball, which obviously was not the case. However, the footballing authorities are keen to promote quick free kicks, ignoring this requirement. In the
Guidelines for referees which appear at the back of the
Laws of the Game, there are two mentions of the quick free kick which confirms this view.
For instance at a free kick in or near the penalty area, it is not felt necessary for the referee to wait for the defending side to make its wall, as would surely have been the case in this instance.
However, there are three other clauses in the law which may have some bearing on the situation. Law 5 says the referee ‘indicates the restart of the match after it has been stopped’. That indication or signal doesn’t have to be a whistle, in fact in the
Guidelines it says that the whistle is not needed to restart play for a goal kick, corner kick, throw-in or free kick, except for a penalty or where the wall is ordered back.
Other requirements for the whistle to restart are after stoppage for a caution or sending off, injury or substitution, none of which apply here. The law also says that the ball must be
stationary and the kick taken from where the offence occurs. With his back to the kicker, the referee, Martin Hansson, could hardly have known whether these requirements were met. He could justifiably have asked for the kick to be retaken.
His decision to allow the quick free kick may have also been justified, but for an international referee it was seen as rather sloppy refereeing.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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