Tuesday, June 3, 2008

New Assistant Referee Signals

The US Soccer Federation has introduced some changes to accepted Assistant Referee mechanics. The announcement was made on May 14 in a memo to all National Referees and State Administrators.
I find the memo a little confusing, but I'll tell you what I think it says. It seems we are given new mechanics for communicating that a foul has occurred in the penalty area. The previous signal was to hold the flag, pointing down, directly in front of the body. The new signal is to hold the flag horizontally across the hips to signal a foul occurred in the penalty area. The same new signal is also used to communicate when a goalkeeper has moved forward on a penalty kick. Check out the announcement and send me your interpretation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I will be one of the first to admit that the double meaning confused me....I thought it was only for when a keeper moved early on a PK and last weekend another referee explained the other side of it to me but he was not aware of it's meaning for the keeper moving....Perhaps it really means I just need to read the memo rather then just listening to other officals...