Ask The Refs

Refs or more seasoned parents, please help me on the scenario that we experienced this past weekend. Other team is dribbling towards the goal when one of our players tackles at the 18 yard box and takes the ball from the opposing player. In the process the other team’s player falls to the ground and our player gained possession dribbling away from the goal when the ref blows his whistle and stops the game. Fortunately the player on the opposing team is not injured and reenters the game. The Ref starts play up with a drop ball and the other team scores on a rainbow from 20 yards out. Both our mid fielder and goalie obviously did not play the ball as well as they should have. This ended up being a big momentum changer in the game and the opposing team goes on to win by many goals. My question is what is the proper way to stop a game when there is an injured player?

I don't see anything wrong with the restart. That is the proper restart if the ball is in play at the time of the whistle.
However, I may have restarted by having the opposing team kick the ball back to your goalie as a restart since they had possession at the time of the whistle.

Agree with itsme - especially at this age. They're old enough to learn about fair play restarts, and it's often a referee who introduces them to the tradition. The other caveat is if the goal was scored directly from the dropped ball, the ref should've disallowed it and granted a goal kick. New change to LOTG as of this year.

In most cases when and injury occurs and no foul has been called this seems to be the proper way to settle things. Sometimes if there's an injury on the other team and your team purposely kicks the ball out of bounds to stop play (even though the whistle hasn't been blown) the team that won the throw in generally gives the ball back over to the other team once the ball has come back in bounds.

In your situation it sounds like the drop ball was the correct call based on the information given. In most cases I believe you can score off a dropped ball but if someone is saying the rules have changed I'll take their word for it.

As of July 1, a new provision in the Laws of the Game took effect. Players can no longer score directly on a dropped ball. Sounds like the ref needs to look at his new rule book.

DDx3 wrote:As of July 1, a new provision in the Laws of the Game took effect. Players can no longer score directly on a dropped ball. Sounds like the ref needs to look at his new rule book.

This.

However, I disagree with referee's teaching sportsmanship. That should come from parent's and coaches. It's a slippery slope having referee's teach anything to the players.