One of the most regularly broken rules in football is a source of great frustration for iconic Italian referee Pierluigi Collina.
According to Law 14 of Fifa’s guide to referees, the official is responsible for ensuring that “the goalkeeper is on the goal line between the goal posts and facing the kicker” when a penalty kick is being taken.
More often than not, though, goalkeepers rush a yard or two off their line to give them a slight advantage for spot kicks and that behaviour is seldom punished.
The most recent example of that took place in the final game of Group D when a late Sergio Ramos penalty was saved by Croatian stopper Danijel Subasic who was about three yards off his line when the Spanish captain made contact with the ball.
And Collina, who is renowned for the zero tolerance attitude he exhibited during games, believes that the failure to force the penalty to be retaken was an error from the official.
“The keeper moved forward,” Collina said in quotes appearing in the Mirror. “It was not spotted by the referee’s team. It was a mistake. Unfortunately it happens, but it was a mistake within a match that was refereed well.”
And Collina, who now acts as Uefa’s head of referees, believes that any attempts from a goalkeeper to come off the line should be punished by a yellow card before the penalty is retaken.
“Referees should pay attention that the penalty kicks are taken correctly,” he said. “It should be retaken and whenever the goalkeeper infringes, he will be cautioned,”
The vast majority of the games at Euro 2016 have seen quite a high standard of refereeing and Collina insists that increased pre-match analysis has played a role in the improvement in quality officiating.
He said: “We have always tried to improve the standard of their performances and thought this was possible if the referee knows more about the match that they are going to referee, because then you are one step ahead.”
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