Soccer Rules-Fouls- Tripping

The rules of soccer list ten offenses for which the punishment is a direct free. This means that the fouled team can score directly from the kick that serves as punishment for the foul. If committed by a defender inside his own penalty area, this direct free kick becomes a penalty kick. These fouls all punish acts on the field that the sport considers 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, and become fouls only if done in an unfair manner. Players can 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 soccer, where most bodily contact is quite incidental to the players? attempts to win the ball and passes quite uneventfully during the course of the game.

Inevitably, though, a player will mistime a kick, misjudge a jump, or overestimate the body?s ability to follow whatever instructions are coming from the brain, and those actions will exceed the bounds of fair play. Nobody can distinguish between fair and foul contact from a cold narrative of course, but referees will be watching particular aspects of each play to decide whether an action is a foul.

Tripping
Players often trip on a soccer field, even without the help of foul play. They can trip over the ball, over uneven ground, or sometimes over each other. But where one player is tripping through no fault of an opponent, there will simply be no foul to call. The foul is tripping an opponent; tripping all by oneself is just being clumsy.

But where one player isn?t being careful in playing the ball?maybe raising a foot during a tackle, or extending a leg as an opponent is running by?then it is not a case of someone simply being a klutz. In this case, the player?s stumble comes about because of the careless actions of someone else, and the trip is the fault of the player who is being careless, and the referee will respond by calling the foul.

Tripping can also take another form that can be quite dangerous. Sometimes called ?bridging? or ?making a back,? this kind of trip takes place when a player jumps to head the ball while an opponent moves to undercut him, often by backing into him. Referees will sometimes mistake this play and call the leaping player for a ?jumping? foul when it is really the fault of the player on the ground. Even when done unintentionally, this play can cause serious injury if the jumping player lands off-balance, and if done deliberately, it often results in a yellow card.

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.