Beyond The Laws of the Game

Luckily, that's not too difficult. The new (1997) TLOG are all of 30 small pages long, much of which is white space and graphics. They can be read cover-to-cover in less than an hour. At the end of a season or so of doing this once a week (feverishly, on Friday nights?) most of us do know them, in detail, quite well.

Unfortunately, at the same time, we begin to realize that there's more to it than that. There are situations which TLOG don't seem to address at all (e.g., can you kneel down to take a throw in?). There are calls from the sidelines about things which aren't mentioned in TLOG at all. We hear that casts are prohibited, but knee braces are allowed. Can we really insist that players have their shirts tucked in? Even if we get consistent answers to questions like these, it's very discouraging. Where does all this stuff come from? What's the point of studying "the laws" if you also have to know an apparently endless list of "other stuff"?

The good news is that there are definitive, written sources for all of it. Unfortunately, the rest of the news is that the information is somewhat scattered, and you have to make bit of an effort to gather and become familiar with all of it. Doing this is an important part of your education as a referee.

TLOG can be as concise as they are because they assume a general knowledge of how the game is played, so they only have to specify those things that are either centrally important or whose details have recently changed (and about which it is therefore necessary to be very explicit). The potentially endless caveats, conditions, and special cases are treated in supplementary additional instructions, case law and memos. Despite their apparently secondary nature, these all do have the full force of Law. They are, as the jargon has it, "authoritative".

The first group of these (the Decisions of the International F. A. Board) are so important that they are actually printed in the TLOG book itself and are usually thought of as part of the Laws. Over time, many of these have been "promoted" directly into the Laws. The recent (1997) rewrite of TLOG moved several of the 1996 (and earlier) Decisions directly into the body of the Laws.

The second group is the Additional Instructions Regarding TLOG, which appeared in the back of the printed TLOG book from 1994 through 1996. These contain a mixture of explanations of points of law, and detailed rulings. For example, in AIRTLOG 23(a) we find the (remarkably phrased) instruction that "players shall be made aware that their jersey remains tucked inside their shorts".

The next source is FIFA's Questions and Answers to TLOG. This 1990 booklet gives answers to 140 specific questions, some for each of the 17 Laws. For example, Q&A XV(8) specifies that a throw in may not be taken from a kneeling or sitting position. Some of the Q&As just restate things that seem to follow directly from TLOG. Others (like Q&A XV(8) on throw ins) extend the written LOG in ways that may not be obvious. The reason for this is that, as we noted above, TLOG assume a general understanding of how the game is played. The Q&As, by spelling out exactly what is to be done in various specific situations, define what that general understanding is. As such, they are the only definitive source of Law on whole classes of situations (e.g., fouls that take place outside the field of play, misbehavior by substitutes, etc.). Therefore, detailed study of them is mandatory for the advanced referee (Section and above).

Finally, FIFA (and the various national associations such as USSF, and affiliated organizations like AYSO) also issue Memoranda that provide guidance and interpretation, especially on newly changed portions of the Law. Sometimes, this guidance is later "promoted". Other times, rulings from Memoranda get no further circulation, presumably because they are felt to be less important.

AYSO's "laws" follow a similar, but less elaborate, structure. At the top, we have the AYSO Rules and Regulations. The most important elements of these for referees (the substitution and age dependent rules) are printed in the AYSO edition of TLOG. One clause of the Rules (VI.G) prohibits the wearing of any kind of cast or splint, whereas knee braces are permitted (if properly padded) by clause 2.9 of AYSO's Policy Statements. AYSO has recently collected various guidance into a new document entitled Interpretations, Instructions, and Advice for Referees, which serves some of the same functions as the Additional Instructions, but is more focused on the needs of AYSO referees. Bill Mason's annual Summary of the Changes, although emphasizing mainly FIFA Law changes, also generally indicates how these changes are to be interpreted in AYSO. And sometimes there is Section, Area or Regional guidance that spells out specific rules and interpretations that apply in those places.

The "layered" nature of this material may seem like an unnecessary burden, and indeed, it does make acquiring all of it a multiphase process. But it also stages it for the learning referee. At first, all you need is TLOG (with the AYSO modifications, as printed) and your local Region's rules. Later, as you begin to realize that there is law beyond the Laws, you can progress to the other material, especially the Q&A. The only thing to be wary of is that this material was written at different times, so some of the older material (especially the Q&A, being the oldest) has been made obsolete by later changes to the Laws. Read them carefully, newest to oldest. For those with access to the Internet, the FIFA Web site has an itemized list of the changes, year by year, that can be helpful. Hopefully, some of the older documents will be revised and reissued soon, making this less of a problem.

And so where do you get all this material? A good place to start is your Regional Director of Referee Instruction. Another convenient place is at referee clinics. Instructors at clinics should always be able to provide you with the authoritative sources for whatever Law material they are teaching.

And you will still be going to clinics, even after you have a complete library of Law documents. It is essential to know what the Law actually says, and where - it removes that "rabbit from a hat" feeling (not to mention the occasional flagrant inaccuracies) that purely word of mouth accounts sometimes produce. But the Laws are full of words like "a dangerous manner", or "unsporting behavior", not to mention "careless, reckless or excessive force" which are not defined anywhere, except by convention and common use. Developing a shared sense of these is what clinics are essential for. The written Law you can, and should, read at home.