What happened in or from the technical area?
Every question in this scenario
The Technical area investigation scenario asks 5 questions and can reach 17 decisions. A walk answers only the ones its own answers lead to. This is the whole set, for reference and for revision.
1What happened in or from the technical area?
Below the caution and the sending-off, Law 12 adds a third tier for the technical area: the warning. Violence, abuse, equipment and a second caution are the next option.
Answers: Something minor: a word, an instruction ignored, a step out · Dissent, disrespect, or not staying in the technical area · Acting against the opponents, the officials, or the game · Violence, abuse, equipment, or a second caution · Nobody can tell who did it · When the referee's authority over them starts and ends · What the technical area is, and who may be in it
2Was it repeated or blatant?
Four offences should usually be a warning, and Law 12 then says what turns them into something more.
Answers: Yes · No
3Which of these was it?
These are examples rather than a closed set, and the list carries its own escalation.
Answers: Clearly or persistently not respecting the technical area · Delaying their own restart, or entering the opponents' area · Dissent: throwing a bottle, sarcastic clapping, disrespect · The review area, the TV signal, or gesturing for a card
4Which of these was it?
Law 12's list is not limited to these, and the first of them is about the opponents' restart rather than about where the official went.
Answers: Deliberately left the area to remonstrate or provoke · Entered the opposing area aggressively, or threw an object · Came onto the field to confront an official or interfere · Delayed the opposing team's restart of play
5Which of these was it?
These are sending-off offences whether they happen on or off the field of play.
Answers: Physical or aggressive behaviour, spitting, or violence · Offensive, insulting or abusive language or actions · A second caution in the same match · Unauthorised electronics, or entering the video room
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.
Caution, or a sending-off if it is bad enough
Repeated or blatant offences should result in a caution or sending-off. The caution list says the same thing from the other end, naming persistent unacceptable behaviour, including repeated warning offences, as a cautionable offence in its own right. So the ladder is not three separate lists of conduct: the same act moves up it by being repeated or by being blatant.
A warning, not a card
These offences should usually result in a warning: entering the field of play respectfully and non-confrontationally, failing to cooperate with a match official, minor or low-level disagreement with a decision, and occasionally leaving the confines of the technical area without committing another offence. A warning is a real sanction rather than an informal chat, and it is not unique to the bench: a goalkeeper is warned for a first offence that causes a penalty kick to be retaken and cautioned for any subsequent one, in a shoot-out as well as during the match, and the guidelines require the referee to warn any player holding an opponent before the ball is in play. What is unique here is that Law 12 builds the warning into the technical area's own ladder, and warnings issued to players and team officials during the match are not carried forward into a shoot-out.
Caution
Clearly or persistently not respecting the confines of their team's technical area is a caution offence. The word that separates this from the warning tier is persistently: occasionally leaving the confines of the technical area without committing another offence is a warning, and doing it clearly or repeatedly is a card.
Caution
Delaying the restart of play by their team is a caution offence, and so is deliberately entering the technical area of the opposing team where it is non-confrontational. Both have a heavier twin in the sending-off list, and the difference is who is being delayed and how the other area was entered: delaying the opposing team's restart, by holding onto the ball, kicking it away or obstructing the movement of a player, and entering their area aggressively or confrontationally, are red. Note which way round that runs, because it is the opposite of the intuition: slowing your own team's restart is the caution, and interfering with the opponents' restart is the sending-off.
Caution
Dissent by word or action is a caution offence, and Law 12 gives two examples that are worth knowing because neither is speech: throwing or kicking drinks bottles or other objects, and actions which show a clear lack of respect for the match officials, such as sarcastic clapping. Acting in a provocative or inflammatory manner and showing a lack of respect for the game are separately listed cautions.
Caution
Three cautions here are about signalling: entering the referee review area, excessively showing the TV signal for a review, and excessively or persistently gesturing for a red or yellow card. The first has no threshold at all, so entering the review area is a caution however calmly it is done, while the other two turn on the excess rather than on the gesture. The first two are printed for a player as well; gesturing for a card is the technical area's own.
Sending-off
Deliberately leaving the technical area to show dissent towards, or remonstrate with, a match official, or to act in a provocative or inflammatory manner, is a sending-off offence. The leaving is not the offence on its own, which is a warning when it is occasional and a caution when it is persistent: what makes it red is the purpose it was done for.
Sending-off
Entering the opposing technical area in an aggressive or confrontational manner is a sending-off offence, and so is deliberately throwing or kicking an object onto the field of play. The first is the red twin of the caution for entering the opponents' area non-confrontationally, and the second is the red twin of throwing a bottle in dissent: in both cases the direction of the act is what moves it up.
Sending-off
Entering the field of play to confront a match official, including at half-time and full-time, or to interfere with play, an opposing player or a match official, is a sending-off offence. Note the two extensions: half-time and full-time are covered explicitly, and entering the field respectfully and non-confrontationally is only a warning, so the purpose is again what decides the tier.
Sending-off
Delaying the restart of play by the opposing team is the first offence in Law 12's sending-off list for a team official, and the Law prints three examples of it: holding onto the ball, kicking the ball away, and obstructing the movement of a player. Note which way round this runs, because it is the opposite of the intuition: delaying their own team's restart is the caution, and delaying the opponents' is the sending-off. The list is introduced as offences that include, but are not limited to, the ones printed, so an act of the same kind is not excused by not appearing in it.
Sending-off
Physical or aggressive behaviour, including spitting or biting, towards an opposing player, substitute, team official, match official, spectator or any other person such as a ball boy or girl, security or competition official, is a sending-off offence, and violent conduct is listed separately. The difference between the two is the threshold rather than the victim: violent conduct requires excessive force or brutality, and against the same wide list of people, while physical or aggressive behaviour from the technical area needs neither.
Sending-off
Using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or actions is a sending-off offence for a team official in the same words it is for a player. The line between this and the caution for dissent is what was said rather than how loudly: disagreement is a caution, and abuse is a red.
Sending-off
Receiving a second caution in the same match is a sending-off offence for a team official exactly as it is for a player. This is why the caution tier matters so much in the technical area: the offences in it are small, and two of them end the same way one violent act would.
Sending-off
Using unauthorised electronic or communication equipment, or behaving in an inappropriate manner as a result of using electronic or communication equipment, is a sending-off offence, and so is entering the video operation room. The video operation room is on the players' sending-off list in the same four words, so that one is not a bench offence at all; the equipment offence is.
The senior team coach present in the technical area takes the sanction
Where an offence is committed by someone from the technical area, meaning a substitute, substituted player, sent-off player or team official, and the offender cannot be identified, the senior team coach present in the technical area will receive the sanction. It moves a sanction onto someone who did not commit the offence, and Law 5 gives the referee the same power in its own words when it lists taking action against team officials.
From the pre-match inspection until the referee leaves the field after the match
The referee has the authority to take disciplinary action from entering the field of play for the pre-match inspection until leaving the field of play after the match ends, including a penalty shoot-out. Before that window, if a player or team official commits a sending-off offence before entering the field of play at the start of the match, the referee has the authority to prevent them taking part and will report any other misconduct. A cautionable or sending-off offence is disciplined according to the offence whether it happens on or off the field.
Law 1 defines it, and the competition decides how many may be in it
The technical area relates to matches played in stadiums with a designated seated area for team officials, substitutes and substituted players. It should extend only 1 m either side of that seated area and up to 1 m from the touchline, and markings should be used to define it. The number of people permitted to occupy it is set by the competition rules, and they are identified before the match in accordance with those rules. The occupants must behave in a responsible manner and must remain within its confines except in special circumstances, for example a physiotherapist or doctor entering the field with the referee's permission to assess an injured player. Only one person at a time is authorised to convey tactical instructions from it. Law 1 attaches no sanction to any of this: what the referee enforces is the duty to behave responsibly and to stay within the confines, and Law 12's warning, caution and sending-off ladder is where those are answered.