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ASK THE REF, GRAHAM FRANKLAND 25-1-06
Goal Celebrations- The rights and wrongs
There have been two high profile incidents recently regarding the way players celebrate the scoring of a goal that have caused a bit of a furore amongst the football supporting public.
The first incident involved Arjen Robben of Chelsea who, after scoring the winning goal against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light ran towards his own supporters, hurdled the advertising hoardings and proceeded to form a "group hug" with the celebrating Chelsea fans who amassed around him in a clear show of wild celebration at the scoring of a goal and the prospect of another three points in the bag in their quest to regain the Premiership Trophy. Now as anyone who has supported a football team can tell you, this highly demonstrative wild celebration of your team scoring is what the game of football is all about, isn't it?
You can therefore imagine the look of absolute horror on Arjen Robben's face when he turned around to make his way back onto the pitch to be met by the sight of Referee Chris Foy brandishing a yellow card followed by the red card as he had already been booked earlier in the game for a clumsy challenge on an opponent.
Now I for one sat watching the game live on TV can remember distinctly muttering to myself the moment he hurdled the advertising hoarding the words "He's off." This reaction comes from my experience as a referee and the instructions given to me of how to deal with this type of situation and without hesitation the incident I had just witnessed clearly fell into the category of yellow card. So why the furore?
Andy Gray who was commentating on the game for Skysports could not believe what he had witnessed and proceeded to mock the actions taken by the referee and brandishing his actions as "bonkers". He continued to tell the watching public that "what's the game coming to when a player cannot celebrate the scoring of a goal?" Unfortunately, when someone like Andy Gray talks, a lot of what he says is taken as gospel without reference to the facts surrounding the subject he is referring to. Indeed it was refreshing to see the managers of both Chelsea and Sunderland both come out after the game in support of the actions of the referee, indicating that he had no option but to yellow card him and that the player will learn not to do it again.
So what are the facts surrounding the celebration of a goal? Unfortunately in the politically correct world that we all now live, the actions taken against a player are far more to do with Health and Safety regulations than the game of football itself. At the time of an adrenaline fuelled goal celebration by a player who rushes into the crowd, the natural reaction of the supporters is to surge forwards to greet their goal scoring hero with little or no consideration for anybody else surrounding them. This surge has resulted in numerous injuries to innocent spectators and indeed only last season a steward at Shrewsbury Town had his arm broken by a surge forward of fans celebrating goal.
As a result of this type of situation the advice has been given to ALL concerned in the game including referees, players, managers and the clubs themselves to refrain from this type of celebration for no other reason than the safety of spectators. Indeed what really baffles me is that prior to each season commencing a referee would normally visit a club to inform the players of any aspect of the laws that they need to be aware of to prevent disciplinary action against them. So any argument that the players concerned are not aware of this is one that simply does not exist... unless at the time of the presentation the player was acting like a naughty schoolboy at the back of the class and not paying attention.
The situation with Gary Neville running the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the opposing fans is slightly different. On this occasion the player did not leave the pitch so no surge forward would have occurred but clearly his actions were designed to incite or wind up the opposition supporters who had presumably been giving him stick during the game... as we all enjoy doing from time to time.
The fact that a number of Liverpool fans complained, prompting police intervention shows that Neville created the desired effect and although no criminal charges are to follow the police have asked the FA for their observations and the case is currently being assessed so we may not have heard the last of this one. Clearly inciting opposition supporters should be deemed as Unsporting Behaviour and a yellow card offence when referring to the laws of football.
Although the baiting of players by opposition fans is common place (because we all enjoy it so much!) unfortunately footballers should be immune to it and not vent their anger back towards them. Gary Neville could quite easily have shown his delight at the scoring of their late winner in exactly the same way but not in front of the Liverpool fans. We do not want to sanitise the game too much when it comes to the delight of a goal celebration but there are boundaries that this can cross and I for one believe Neville crossed that boundary on this incident.
I hope this gives you all an incite into this aspect of football from a refereeing view point and hope that as Boro fans we can share the joys of celebrating a goal many times during the rest of the season....... but in the right way!
Until the next time.
Enjoy your football.
Graham's answers to reader's questions are published every week in this section. If you have a question for the ref, perhaps about a recent dubious refereeing decision, something that happened during his own football career or about football or reffing in general, then please write in straight away.
FILL THIS FORM OUT WITH YOUR QUESTION, or just email us here.
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