Shifting gears, NFHS/USSF

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

Not what the rule says. It says the ball must be "between two opposing players." It doesn't say equidistant or that opposing players must participate. As long as an opponent is behind the ball, the rule is satisfied.

Which is to say, I'm not going to order a team who doesn't want to participate in a drop ball to do so.

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

Great point, Eastshire!!!

Of course, interestingly, this precise situation is why FIFA changed the law concerning scoring directly off of a drop ball....

I very much DISLIKE the NFHS rule on the "two opposing players" drop ball.

At the same time, I also HATE the indirect free kick rule when a team has possession. GV game on Tuesday, we had a defender injured in the PA. The play was killed after the ball was cleared out of the penalty area. My partner insisted that the attacking team got a touch on the ball BEFORE the play was killed (I could not disagree, but the defender was right there to challenge). Therefore, we started with an indirect free kick -- a HUGE advantage over the "live run of play" situation when the play was killed. The resulting free kick generated a goal.

A drop ball would have been a much more appropriate call, in my opinion.

Nah, he's just reading into it what he wants. The intent of the NFHS rule is obvious. They want the drop ball to be contested by two and only two players. We may or may not like the rule, but the intent is clear.

For your situation, your partner wasn't very wise and probably caused a situation that placed the game out of the balance of fairness to the teams by his insistence. Not good.

Now I will express my opinion that since sporting behavior is so highly stressed in HS games and the rules even require it to be mentioned at the pregame meeting with the head coach and the captain, that the referee has much more basis under NFHS rules than the USSF LOTG to instruct a team to either return the ball to the opponents or to play it backward and not create a scoring opportunity from an IFK which results from an injury situation.

That could have been your way out of what your partner created.