From Sporting life: FA BRING IN 10-YARD DISSENT RULE

By Mark Bradley, PA Sport Chief Soccer Writer

The '10-yard rule', which is aimed at curbing dissent by giving referees the power to move free-kicks forward, is to be introduced into the professional game next season by the Football Association. The rule, which has been successfully used for several years in rugby union, will come into effect from the start of next season and will apply to all Premiership games as well as FA Cup ties from the first round proper onwards. It is also expected that the Football League will shortly agree to follow suit and that would mean the rule would first be introduced in the opening round of next season's Nationwide League matches on August 12. From next season, if any player shows dissent, fails to retreat the required distance or kicks the ball away when a direct or indirect free-kick is awarded, he has to be booked and the free-kick is then moved forward by 10 yards. The referee will actually move the ball in the direction of the centre of the goal, rather than parallel to the touch-line, but if that results in the free-kick ending up in the penalty area, it will remain a free-kick - and not result in a penalty being awarded. Direct free-kicks, which could still be defended by a wall, would therefore result for the first time inside the penalty area but these could not be any nearer than six yards to the goal-line. Referees would, however, not be given the power to continue moving free-kicks forward by 10 yards if players carry on showing dissent. A second consecutive offence would still be punishable by a yellow card, but the ball would not be moved any further forward than the initial 10 yards. The rule has so far only been experimented with on a trial basis in Jersey, the Central Midlands Football League and the Auto-Windscreens Shield. However, with the agreement of the game's international governing bodies, the FA have now decided that the success of those trials means that it should be adopted in the professional game, with a review taking place after the end of next season. An FA statement revealed: "The FA and the FA Premier League have agreed to adopt the experimental 10-yard advancement rule next season. "It is expected that, in the next few weeks, the Football League will also adopt it. "Next season's introduction of the experiment to the FA Cup - at the first round proper stage - the Premier League and Football League will see every game monitored in those competitions before a further evaluation takes place at the end of the season." Premier League chairmen agreed to introduce the new rule on an experimental basis next season at their meeting yesterday. Premier League spokesman Mike Lee declared: "The pilot schemes so far have been judged to be a success in that they helped to cut dissent and it was very quickly understood by the players that they faced a double punishment in certain circumstances. "We do think it will have a positive effect, in particular on cutting down the amount of dissent on the field of play. "The rule is not being introduced worldwide at this stage. But clearly it does need to be looked at in highly-competitive situations such as the Premiership." Some players will no doubt take time to get used to the new rule and the effects will also be felt by non-League clubs who make it through to the first round of the FA Cup as, unlike Nationwide League teams, they would not have experienced it before.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Answers

Is this for real Ciara!? Flippin heck! I can see play moving up and down the pitch without a ball having ever been kicked, especially if you get a couple of argumentative types going at it hammer and tongs! (:o)

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Wow...how very unlike the FA to bring in a rule that will work against Man Ure....

Maybe the Far East betting syndicates have bribed the FA to let someone else win the title next season :))

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Bet Manure never gets it called against them at OT.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Hopefully it'll shut Shearer up ((-:

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Now this is definite it should be made perfectly clear to the players that dissent is NOT acceptable at all! big fines for any players who are penalised because of this ruling....

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

I think the sales of duct tape are going to skyrocket next season. A case each for Al and Dabs for starters. ;-)

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

I can see this causing more problems with the referes. What one ref regards as dissent is different to another hence the reason Shearer was booked on Sunday, whereas other refs would have booked him earlier and others not at all.

Remember when the 'professional foul' was clamped down on? There were many cases of one ref sending someone off and another ref not. Even though it was for the same offence. I also think the refs will be swayed by the fans. It will take a brave ref to move a free kick to the edge of the box at places like OT, Anfield and St James'

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

This rule is long over due and works wonderfully in Rugby Union where if a player utters a single word out of turn then a ref may move the Kick back ten yards. At the moment players in the EPL will try and influence the ref by using dissent for a variety of reasons. To try and confuse the ref so that he doesn't book a player, to make sure the free kick is not taken quickly, to make sure the free kick is not taken from the right place, to ensure that the ref is so intimidated that he will be more favourable to their side.

All these objectives are cheating, plain and simple cheating and the sooner they are cut out the better.

Secondly the more that referees are harangued by a crowd of baying players the more that junior teams will feel that this is the correct thing to do in order to win the game.

Thirdly dissent leads to violence against officials. If a player feels a referee is wrong then he will continue to argue unless that dissent carries a punishment that effects the team rather than himselfi.e. 10 yards back not a booking. In the present situationas he is already angry with the refs decision a player will not care if he gets sent off and will become violent once sent off but will care if he adversely effects the rest of his team.

Finally, thank the lord that we have finally taken a step down the road to stop our games degenerating into the unedifying spectacle that we see in other sports whereby refs are leaned on throughout a match to influence the outcome. When I played basketball as a kid we were coached to argue with every decision a ref made as a kind of gamesmanship. I was ashamed of doing it, the coach should have been ashamed of it, and our school should have been ashamed of it. We wanted to win and we felt we could gain an advantage by doing it. it is cheating and this is a great step towards stamping out cheating and encouraging more refs toi want to referee.

Rant over

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Gav writes :-

>>>>Wow...how very unlike the FA to bring in a rule that will work against Man Ure....

What are you on about Gav? The Rules of the game act for ALL teams EXCEPT Manure who are granted exemptions on the grounds that they have too many matches and are representing us abroad etc etc. I'm surprised you've overlooked this point.

Seriously, an excellent and long overdue rule change.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

I do think it's an excellent rule and I've been saying it for a few years, I also don't think they're going far enough when the ball can only be moved once and God helps us when Jeff Winters ref. Like I said above there will be many problems caused by this.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Frankly I think it's a good move for the game. I do, however believe that once is not enough, for example the current ten yard rule on a free kick. How many times do we see the wall at seven yards, the ref tells them to get back and one lads beaks off. He gets booked and the ref allows the kick to be taken with the wall now eight yards back. Same thing on throw ins, ref sends him back five yards and he takes a six yard run up. With this rule, "if applied consistently" and yes, I know that's the downfall, the gamesmanship will decrease and will ultimately lead to a more flowing and exciting game. Thank God I'm not a Referee. Bottom line is, apply with common sense and all will be better. (Yes I realize that Referee and Common Sense is an Oxymoron but what the heck).

PiC

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

This is a welcome innovation, and if sensibly applied by the referees should be highly beneficial to the game. Unfortunately, the recent past is littered with the problems caused when our referees over-emphasise minor rule changes to the detriment of common sense.

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

I hope this new rule works. No doubt there will be a lot of controversy in the coming season.

This was discussed on 5 Live last night. There seemed some confusion as to whether the ball could be continually moved forward or not. In the trials in the Windscreen Wiper Cup, they were only allowed to move it forward once.

Another thing was mentioned which interested me. In rugby, nobody is allowed to "discuss" with the ref apart from the captain. Now, I realise this might not help Big Al (and certainly not Kean-o) but it could be a simpler rule to apply. If anybody other than the skipper has a word against the ref, a free-kick would be given/moved forward. I believe that would cut out a lot of the dissent.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2000