I am always amazed how every new football season seems to start with a different controversy concerning the laws of the game. This year is no exception.
In the first week of Premiership action two similar instances occurred where teams scored by taking quick free kicks whilst their opponents were still sorting themselves out. The Managers of the sides who conceded the goals angrily protested over what they consider unfair play permitted by the referees.
I have only seen one of the incidents replayed on television,
thre one when David Beckham chipped the ball over the head of the Blackburn goalkeeper who had come to the edge of his penalty area to organise his defensive wall. Graham Souness argued that his team should have been allowed to get into place so violently that he looked as if he was about the blow a fuse in his pacemaker.
Some newspapers have suggested that it was all due to a change in the laws during the close season about the taking of free kicks and so many people have said to
me: 'Surely the referee has to blow his whistle for the free kick to be taken'. The answer to both suggestions is quite simply 'no'. There have been very limited changes to the laws this year and certainly nothing about the taking of free kicks. And no, the referee does not have to use his whistle.
Here's a good question for your pub quiz: 'How many times do the laws of the game mention the word
'whistle'?'. The answer is that it isn't mentioned at all. Nowhere does it say that the referee must blow a whistle to start the match or to re-start after the game has been stopped.
What the law used to say was 'the referee shall signal for the recommencement of play'. That seemed pretty clear to me but, when the laws were rewritten in 1997, it was decided to change this to 'The referee restarts the game after it has
been stopped'. Just another example in my mind how badly they were rewritten. However, the new wording means the same as the old, but neither stipulates what that signal has to be. It can
be and most often is a whistle but this is not mandatory. The signal can be an action, for example a wave, or even a verbal signal.
The law also does not say that the referee must allow time for the offending team to get organised. After all, the free kick is supposed to be a punishment, or a 'sanction' as it is described in the laws, so why should the offending team get any treatment that would invalidate that punishment?
What we tell new referees when faced with similar situations, is to ask the player taking the kick if he wants to take it quickly. If he does, then all that is needed is to say something like 'off you go then',
provided of course that the ball is in the correct place and is stationary. That is exactly what seemed to happen in the Manchester United game.
However, the referee will not allow a quick free kick if he himself is not ready. He may be having a word with the player who has committed the offence,
or he may be trying to get the defending team back the full ten yards. Very often players try to take a cheeky one whilst the opponents attention is occupied by the referee in this way. In these circumstances the referee would order the kick to be retaken.
One of the things impressed upon us as referees is to keep the game moving as much as we can without loosing control. Indeed, most of the new laws introduced in recent years have been with the intent of speeding up the game, for example the six second rule for goalkeepers. The quick free kick is just another way of getting the ball into play without wasting time.
Dick Sawdon Smith