Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Question
A defender commits a bad foul. Although not with the excessive force that endangered the safety of the forward, nevertheless it is deserving of a yellow card. But with an excellent goalscoring opportunity for the attacking side you play an advantage and will caution the defender later.

But before the ball goes dead the same defender immediately commits another bad foul. Again it is not with excessive force that it endangers the safety of an opponent, but again deserving of a yellow card.

What would you do in this situation?

Thank you to lorus59 for this question. We will give you Keith Hackett's answer on Friday, along with question number six.

Now for a reminder of question 4 and the answer from Keith Hackett.

Question
A Czech Republic midfielder misjudges a pass back to his centre-half. An opposition forward, spotting his chance, races in to challenge. The quick-thinking centre-half, feints to play the ball, but without touching it, he allows it to pass through his legs to his goalkeeper, who had sensed the danger and had run to the edge of the penalty box and then picks up the ball. Because the centre-half never touched the ball, the forward immediately claims it is a backpass to the goalkeeper. He screams for a free-kick to be awarded.

Is he right? What would you do in this situation?

Thank you to japhakayk for this suggestion.

Keith Hackett's answer
The referee can only penalise a DELIBERATE pass back to the goalkeeper. In this instance the ball was passed back to the centre-half and it is perfectly permissable for the centre-half to dummy an opponent without touching the ball and for the goalkeeper to become involved and collect as clearly shown in the drawing, inside his penalty area. Therefore the game would continue with Cech allowed to clear his lines. Be aware also that on the backpass law if the player uses his head, chest or knee to pass the ball back, then this is perfectly OK.

It is only the DELIBERATE pass back to the goalkeeper by the FOOT that is penalised. This law change was introduced to reduce negative play and it has, in my opinion, been a huge success.

Let's hope Petr Cech comes through the Euro 2008 unscratched. After his very serious life threatening injury at Reading, he continues to demonstrate his great courage and is one of the world's best goalkeepers.

If you have any further suggestions for You Are The Ref please let us know. We cannot publish all of them but a selection of those sent in will be chosen by Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sport and used in the coming weeks.

We will also be giving Keith Hackett's answers to some of the other submissions later on this week.