Soccer Rules-Fouls- Pushing

Soccer rules identify ten fouls that are punished by a direct free. This means that the fouled team can score directly from the kick that serves as punishment for the foul. These fouls all punish acts on the field that soccer deems to be unfair or unsafe.

Most acts are fouls only if committed carelessly, recklessly, or with excessive force. Most acts on a soccer field are fouls only by degree. This is because most actions during the run of play are harmless in themselves, becoming fouls only if done in an unfair manner. Players often bump into each other while running, or push past each while each is trying to avoid a collision. They may tussle over the ball, or leap to head a long pass and collide another player who is trying to do the same thing. They may kick at the ball and narrowly miss kicking their opponent?s shin. All of these actions are just part of good soccer, and most bodily contact is quite incidental to the players? attempts to win the ball.

Often, though, players overstep the bounds of fair play. Sometimes, this comes from an excess of enthusiasm. Sometimes, it arises through frustration. Many times, it comes about overestimating the body?s ability to do what the brain is telling it to do. In every game, it is up to the referee to decide when those actions will exceed the bounds of fair play. The foul of ?pushing? is a good example.

Pushing
Players often tussle after the ball at a soccer match. In fact, some boys games often come to resemble wrestling matches. Most of this contact is quite fair and, if qualifying as a ?fair charge,? would be well within the normal range of fair play. Sometimes, however, a player will go beyond the customary challenges and simply shove an opposing player out of the way.

Whether it arises from an attempt to clear a path to the ball, or to ensure that the opponent is in no position to contest for possession, the referee will be alert to judge when an action crosses the line from fair contact to an unfair push. Among the clues used to draw the line will be force of the contact, whether it came about from an unnatural movement of the arms or body, and whether it seemed designed to stop or alter the opponent?s momentum.

Jeffrey Caminsky, a veteran public prosecutor in Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. Both his science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the first volume in the Guardians of Peace (tm) science fiction adventure series, and The Referee?s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating, are published by New Alexandria Press, http://www.newalexandriapress.com.