Referees are sometimes foxed by oddities in the Laws of the game, by that I mean decisions that can be different for the same offence, when committed at a different time.

As an example, take a player swapping with a goalkeeper. This doesn’t happen very often, usually through injury, but is covered by Law three.

This says, ‘any player may change places with a goalkeeper if the referee is involved before the change takes place and is during a stoppage in play’. The referee will therefore, be fully aware of the change.

However, if the referee spots a change that has taken place without his knowledge, he will issue a yellow card to both culprits. If the game is in progress he will wait until a stoppage, before issuing the cards.

Let’s go to the second half of the game with the referee spotting that a change has taken place of which he has not been informed. If on questioning the two players, he discovers that the change was made during the half time interval, then he takes no action, no yellow cards.

This would also include half time of extra time if it is being played, and the period between the end of the match and start of extra time.

Substitutes are somewhat similar. The Law says, if the competition rules (which referees also have to learn), state that names of players and substitutes have to be given to the referee before the game, there is a list of possible situations. For instance, if the referee discovers that a substitute is actually playing right from the beginning, instead of a player listed, no action should be taken.

On the other hand, if a substitute should come on, once the game has started without the referee’s permission, it’s a yellow card for entering the field of play without permission. Unless, that is, the substitution was made during the half time break which makes it OK.

I mention all this because at a recent match the referee realised that a player he had just cautioned was a substitute that he had not given permission to come on.

Although being told that the substitution took place at halftime, he gave him another yellow card for entering the field of play without permission. This of course, meant a red card and sending off.

A team mate objected to the referee, who sent him to the sin bin for dissent. So for 10 minutes that team were down to nine men, which should not have happened. This just shows as I said, how referees, even competent ones, can be foxed by the Laws oddities.

By Dick Sawdon Smith

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