Dissent

According to Law 12, a caution for dissent may be given for dissent by word or action. While dissent by word may not be easy to catch from afar (you may not hear it), dissent by action is very clear.

Watch the video below. Would you give a caution for dissent by action? Or would you manage without a caution?

Mechanics of giving a card

Have you had a referee mentor who told you that you should isolate the player to whom you are giving a card? Do you know why?

It's important to make it to clear to everyone who is getting a card. Even if you are not refereeing with 80,000 fans, team officials watching the game from 40 yards away need to know who just received a card. The ARs also need to know. If ARs write down a wrong number, you may have a situation where the referee gives a second caution send-off to someone who has only received one yellow card. Or the referee may not give a second caution send-off to a player who actually received their second caution in the same game.

Watch the video clip below. Do you know who received the card?

Injury Management

What do you do when you suspect a player is seriously injured? The answer is easy. Just stop the game. In the video below, the player is hurt but at first, it is not very clear how seriously she was hurt. Fortunately, the ball goes out of touch and the game is stopped. The referee correctly identified that the player needed some assistance.

Oftentimes players go down because of collision. But some other times, they may go down without any apparent contact from another player. The latter case, even though there was no contact, could be serious. There are times when the situation is more serious when a player goes down alone than because of contact from an opponent.

So if you see a player go down without any contact from another player, be extra cautious. The player may need assistance more than we imagine.

Teamwork

One may think that the job of an AR is the ball in and out and offside. But ARs play a vital role especially when the referee is caught behind and ends up significant far from play. In the video below, the referee is extremely far from a possible foul incident. In this situation, the AR is the only one that can make a credible decision. 

It is important to note that during this counterattack, there was no imminent offside decision for the AR to make. There was not going to be any ball in-or-out decision, either. This means that the AR's focus must be 100% on the play itself. The AR is now the "referee" who happens to be on the touchline. 

AR's focus and involvement is critical in making a correct decision.