What happened involving the goalkeeper?
Every question in this scenario
The Goalkeeper investigation scenario asks 9 questions and can reach 11 decisions. A walk answers only the ones its own answers lead to. This is the whole set, for reference and for revision.
1What happened involving the goalkeeper?
They do not share a sanction: a corner, an indirect free kick, an ordinary handball, and one case that runs the other way.
Answers: Held or controlled the ball with the hands for a long time · Handled the ball after a team-mate played it to them · Touched the ball with the hands again after releasing it · Handled the ball outside their own penalty area · An opponent interfered while they held or released the ball
2Was the goalkeeper in control inside their own area for more than eight seconds?
Bouncing the ball and throwing it up are forms of control, so neither resets the count.
Answers: Yes · No
3How did the ball reach the goalkeeper from their team-mate?
Only two routes restrict the goalkeeper's hands. A natural header, chest or knee back, or an accidental deflection, leaves them free; a trick set up to get round that does not.
Answers: Deliberately kicked to them by a team-mate · Directly from a team-mate's throw-in · Headed, chested or kneed back as a natural pass · Deflected off a team-mate accidentally · A trick by a team-mate to head, chest or knee it back · The goalkeeper never touched it with the hands · The goalkeeper told a team-mate to head or chest it back
4Was the goalkeeper inside their own penalty area when they handled it?
Law 12 grants the indirect free kick only for a goalkeeper offence committed inside their own penalty area. Outside it the ordinary handball test applies instead.
Answers: Yes · No
5Had the goalkeeper clearly kicked, or tried to kick, the ball away first?
This covers the goalkeeper who miskicks their own clearance and then gathers it.
Answers: Yes · No
6Did a team-mate manoeuvre the ball so it could be headed or chested back?
A deliberate trick is an offence whether or not the goalkeeper touches the ball, so leaving it alone does not answer it. Everything else needs a touch with the hands.
Answers: Yes · No
7Was the goalkeeper inside their own penalty area when they handled it?
Law 12 grants the indirect free kick only for a goalkeeper offence committed inside their own penalty area. Outside it the ordinary handball test applies instead.
Answers: Yes · No
8Had the ball touched another player before the goalkeeper handled it again?
Once the goalkeeper releases the ball, they cannot pick it up again until someone else has touched it. Any other player counts, including one of their own team.
Answers: Yes · No
9Was the goalkeeper in control, or releasing the ball, when the opponent acted?
This branch reaches an offence by the opponent rather than by the goalkeeper.
Answers: Yes · No
Every decision it can reach
Each one is where a walk ends, with the reasoning it prints. The clause behind a decision is cited on the decision itself, which you reach by walking to it.
Corner kick to the opposing team
A corner kick is awarded where a goalkeeper, inside their own penalty area, controls the ball with the hands or arms for more than eight seconds before releasing it. The sanction is the restart itself, and the Laws attach no caution to it.
No offence: within the eight seconds
The goalkeeper released the ball within eight seconds of gaining control, so there is no offence. The referee decides when control began, and counts down the last five seconds visibly, so the deadline is not a silent one.
No offence: the goalkeeper had tried to play it away
Where the goalkeeper has clearly kicked or attempted to kick the ball to release it into play, handling it afterwards is not the offence.
Indirect free kick to the opposing team
The goalkeeper handled a ball deliberately kicked to them by a team-mate, or received directly from a team-mate's throw-in, without having clearly kicked or attempted to kick it away first. An indirect free kick is awarded from where the handling occurred. There is no disciplinary sanction for handling inside their own penalty area when not permitted. That holds however dangerous the position was: the clause prints one exception, for playing the ball a second time after a restart, and a back-pass is not it. IFAB answers this position directly and says the referee does not need to judge whether the handling denied a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Outside the penalty area the goalkeeper is judged as any other player
Law 12 gives the goalkeeper the same restrictions on handling as any other player outside their own penalty area, and the same restrictions means the same test rather than an automatic offence: not every touch of a player's hand or arm with the ball is an offence, so a goalkeeper whose arm is struck in a position his own body movement accounts for has committed nothing. That test is the handball tree's, and it is eleven questions rather than one, which is why this walk hands over rather than asking a shorter version of it. What this tree can say before it does is the sanction: the carve-out that spares a goalkeeper a card for handling inside his own penalty area reaches only inside it, so once there is an offence out here, denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity is a sending-off, by a deliberate handball wherever it occurs and by a non-deliberate one outside the offender's own penalty area alike.
Continues in the handball scenario.
No offence: the restriction does not apply to this pass
The restriction covers a ball deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper by a team-mate, and a ball received directly from a team-mate's throw-in. A ball headed, chested or kneed back as a natural pass, or one that deflects off a team-mate accidentally, is neither, so the goalkeeper may handle it. A header, chest or knee back that a team-mate set up to get round the restriction is a different offence, the deliberate trick, whatever manoeuvre set it up. And the restriction bites on the goalkeeper touching the ball with the hand or arm, so where he never did there is nothing for it to bite on: a goalkeeper and a defender passing the ball to each other with their feet inside the penalty area commit no offence under this rule however long they do it for, and the eight seconds is a separate question about control with the hands.
Deliberate trick: indirect free kick, and a caution for whoever initiated it
The offence belongs to whoever initiated the trick. That is usually the team-mate, and the clause says in terms that the goalkeeper is penalised, and cautioned, if responsible for initiating it, so a goalkeeper who tells a defender to head the ball back to him is the offender rather than the victim. Initiating a deliberate trick for the ball to be passed to the goalkeeper with the head, chest or knee, in order to circumvent the restriction on a ball kicked back, is a cautionable offence, and the indirect free kick is awarded where the trick was initiated rather than where the goalkeeper touched the ball. Two limbs of the clause decide most arguments about it. It applies whether or not the goalkeeper touches the ball with the hands, so a goalkeeper who leaves the ball alone does not save the team-mate. And it applies from a free kick or a goal kick as well as from open play. A natural header, chest or knee back is not this offence and the goalkeeper may handle it; what makes it one is the intention to get round the restriction, not which manoeuvre set the pass up.
No offence: another player had touched the ball
The ball touched another player after the goalkeeper released it and before they handled it again, so the restriction is spent. Any player counts, including one of the goalkeeper's own team.
Indirect free kick: handled again before anyone else touched it
The goalkeeper touched the ball with the hand or arm after releasing it and before it had touched another player. An indirect free kick is awarded, with no disciplinary sanction for the handling itself. If the offence was playing the ball a second time after a restart before it touched another player, and that stopped a promising attack or denied a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, the goalkeeper must be sanctioned for that.
Offence by the opponent: indirect free kick to the goalkeeper's team
The offence here belongs to the opponent, not the goalkeeper. A goalkeeper cannot be challenged while in control of the ball with the hands or arms, and preventing the goalkeeper releasing the ball, or kicking or attempting to kick it while they are in the process of releasing it, is an indirect free kick offence. Read the two clauses apart, because only one of them prints a restart. Preventing the goalkeeper from releasing the ball, and kicking or attempting to kick it while they are releasing it, are on Law 12's indirect free kick list, which is where the answer above comes from. The rule that a goalkeeper cannot be challenged while in control of the ball with the hands is a prohibition with no restart printed under it, so a challenge that is itself a Law 12 offence keeps its own: a push or a charge is a direct free kick, and a penalty kick where the offence occurred inside the offender's own penalty area. Where the challenge is none of those, the Laws print no restart for it and Ruleside does not supply one.
No offence: the ball was not under the goalkeeper's control
The goalkeeper was not in control of the ball with the hands or arms and was not in the act of releasing it, so the protection does not apply. Once the ball is on the ground and in play, an opponent may challenge for it in the ordinary way, subject to the usual rules on dangerous play and fouls.