A free by any other name. . .

Rules of the Game

15.4.5 Prohibited Contact and Payment of Free Kick

A field Umpire shall award a Free Kick against a Player where he or she is satisfied that the Player has made Prohibited Contact with an opposition Player.

 

A Player makes Prohibited Contact with an opposition Player if he or she:

(b) pushes an opposition Player in the back, unless such contact is incidental to a Marking contest and the Player is legitimately Marking or attempting to Mark the football;

We reproduce part of the Rules of the Game document to remind readers of the total and complete reference within the rules to awarding a free kick for pushing in the back. Yes, that’s it. There’s nothing more.

 

Everything else we see on a weekly basis, such as “hands on/in the back” is someone’s interpretation of this rule. First and foremost, let’s just acknowledge that the hands in the back interpretation is a fair stretch from the rule as written. It will come as no surprise for us to inform you that there are squillions of similar examples. Some of the current interpretations would appear to actually directly contradict the rules as written.

 

So, what’s brought on this fever of research? We witnessed — well, we saw on television — an incident today where a player of team A deliberately dove in under two players of team B who were attempting to retrieve a loose ball on the ground. The dive caused both team B players to lose their footing and fall over the team A player. A free kick for a push in the back was paid to the team A player.

 

Let’s forget, just for a moment, that the television replay clearly showed that neither team B player had actually touched the team A player’s back — and that the camera angle was fairly closely aligned with the umpire’s point of view.

 

It seems to us that there is a substantial difference between a push — that is, an active force being applied by the offending player — and being caused to fall across the other player’s back by the other player’s own actions.

 

This is just one example where the application of an inflexible interpretation of a rule denies players natural justice. The team A player brought that situation upon himself by diving in where he did. Penalising the team B players makes them responsible for an action that they did not initiate.

 

Complex interpretations of rules and inflexible implementation of them are a blight on our game.

 

Release the Giesch!!

 

Having made the point above that the team B players did not appear to touch the team A player’s back according to the television replay, it would appear that the umpire(s) assumed that such a contact would have been made, and paid the free kick on that basis.

 

The free kick should only be paid when the umpire sees the infringement. Not when they imagine it, when they see it.