In the final post regarding the Laws of the Game Review, we are discussing a combination of Law 12 - Fouls & Misconduct (Temporary Dismissals & Sending-off Offences) and Law 14 - The Penalty Kick. Specifically we looking at the sanctions for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity (DOGSO).
Under the current Law:
A player is sent off and shown the red card if he/she commits any of the following offences:
• S1 – serious foul play
• S2 – violent conduct
• S3 – spits at or bites someone
• S4 – denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence (this does not apply to a goalkeeper within their own penalty area)
• S5 – denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick
• S6 – uses offensive, insulting or abusive language
• S7 – receives a second blue/yellow card in the same match
It was proposed that the current sanctions for committing a DOGSO offence seem to be harsh in that a player who commits a DOGSO offence is automatically shown a Red Card. This severe sanction is not used by most referees and therefore teams are often committing fouls deliberately or running back to make a tackle knowing that the punishment will only be a free kick.
The aim here is to reduce instances of contact whilst also ensuring as many players stay on the pitch as possible. Walking Football’s aim is to keep players healthier for longer and reducing playing time through red cards for non-excessive force seems counter-productive. Additionally, there may be over-exertion from those players remaining on a team with one player less could be seen as harming player welfare.
As such the proposed change would be:
For any DOGSO offences, a blue card is shown to the offending player and a penalty kick is awarded to the opposition.
During the recent trial events, no changes were made to this Law, however the number of DOGSO incidences were recorded in order to assess what impact any changes could have on the game. There were two DOGSO offences across the three events in total.
