All rules
Every football rule explained in plain language with real scenarios. Based on IFAB Laws of the Game 2026/27.
Each one cites the provisions it turns on. The Laws of the Game groups these by subject and holds the clause corpus underneath.
Advantage: Showing Cards After Playing On
When the referee plays advantage, a caution or sending-off warranted by the original offence is issued when the ball is next out of play. Law 12 then departs from that in three ways: advantage after a DOGSO offence makes it a caution rather than a sending-off, makes it no sanction at all if the advantage produces a goal, and after an offence that stopped a promising attack there is no caution.
Advantage Rule
The referee allows play to continue when an offence occurs, or a restart is incorrectly taken and the ball is in play, if the opposing team will benefit. If the anticipated advantage does not follow at that time or within a few seconds, the referee penalises the offence or orders the retake.
Corner Kick
A corner kick is awarded when the ball fully crosses the goal line having last been touched by a defending player. It is also the sanction for two delay offences: a goalkeeper controlling the ball for more than eight seconds inside their own penalty area, and a player delaying the taking of their team's goal kick.
Dangerous Play
Playing in a dangerous manner is any action that, while trying to play the ball, threatens injury to someone including the player themselves, and it includes preventing a nearby opponent from playing the ball for fear of injury. It is an indirect free kick.
Dissent & Surrounding the Referee
Players cannot show dissent toward referee decisions by word or action, and surrounding the referee is a specific form of it. Under Law 3 the captain has no special status. Competitions may implement the 'Only the captain' guidelines, which become compulsory from 1 July 2027 and let one player approach the referee. The 4 metre captain-only zone is a separate option that the Laws give to youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football only.
Drop Ball
A dropped ball is the restart whenever the referee stops play and the Law does not require another restart. It goes to the team that would have kept or gained possession, with the team that last touched the ball as the fallback, and to the goalkeeper if play stopped inside the penalty area.
Elbow Use in Challenges
The word elbow appears nowhere in the Laws, so every elbow incident is decided by a clause about something else. Off the ball, a deliberate strike to the head or face with the hand or arm is violent conduct unless the force used was negligible. In a challenge for the ball, it is careless, reckless or excessive force like any other.
Encroachment at Free Kicks & Penalties
Opponents must be at least 9.15 metres (10 yards) from the ball at free kicks. At penalties, all players except the kicker and goalkeeper must be outside the penalty area. Encroachment by an outfield player at a penalty is not an offence on its own: it is penalised only where it clearly impacted an opponent, or where the encroaching player got involved in play and that changed the goal-scoring outcome.
Extra Time & Penalty Shootout
Where competition rules require a winner, the Laws permit only three procedures and any combination of them: the away goals rule, two equal periods of extra time of no more than 15 minutes each, and penalties, which the Laws call a penalty shoot-out. The shoot-out is not simply a run of penalty kicks. Law 10 states its own procedure, and where it differs from Law 14 it is Law 10 that decides.
Fair Shoulder Charge
A charge is a physical challenge against an opponent, usually with the shoulder and the upper arm kept close to the body. Charging is not an offence in itself: it becomes a direct free kick only where the referee judges it careless, reckless or made with excessive force. The one condition the Laws attach to a fair charge is that the ball is within playing distance.
Foul Location: Where is the Free Kick Taken?
A free kick is taken from the place where the offence occurred, not from where the player falls, and Law 13 lists four exceptions to that. An offence inside the offender's own penalty area is a penalty kick, and because the lines are part of the area they enclose, contact on the line is inside it.
What Is a Foul, and What Does It Cost?
Seven physical offences are a direct free kick when the referee judges them careless, reckless or made with excessive force. Those three words also decide the card: careless is no card, reckless is a caution, excessive force is a sending-off. A handful of further offences are a direct free kick however they are committed, and a separate list is only ever an indirect free kick. Inside the offender's own penalty area, a direct free kick offence becomes a penalty.
Fouls on the Goalkeeper
The Laws give the goalkeeper one protection nobody else has: they cannot be challenged at all while in control of the ball with the hands or arms. Preventing them from releasing the ball, or kicking at it as they release it, is a separate indirect free kick offence. Every other challenge on a goalkeeper is judged as it would be on any player: an offence when it is careless, reckless or uses excessive force.
Free Kick & Defensive Wall
For a direct or indirect free kick, opponents must be at least 9.15 m (10 yds) from the ball unless they are on their own goal line between the goalposts. Where three or more defending players form a wall, every attacking player must stay at least 1 m (1 yd) from it until the ball is in play, and an attacker inside that metre concedes an indirect free kick.
Goal Kick
A goal kick is awarded when the ball fully crosses the goal line last touched by an attacking player. The ball is in play as soon as it is kicked and clearly moves, and opponents must be outside the penalty area until then. New for 2026/27: a team that unfairly delays a goal kick concedes a corner after a five-second countdown.
Goalkeeper Distribution & Release
While the goalkeeper is in control of the ball with the hands or arms, an opponent may not challenge for it at all, and preventing the release or kicking at the ball during it is an indirect free kick. Once the goalkeeper has genuinely released the ball into play, they may not handle it again until another player has touched it.
Back-Pass & Goalkeeper Handling
A goalkeeper may not handle the ball after a team-mate has deliberately kicked it to them, or after receiving it directly from a team-mate's throw-in, and the restart is an indirect free kick. There is an exception that decides most real incidents: if the goalkeeper has clearly kicked or attempted to kick the ball to release it into play, they may then handle it.
Goalkeeper: 8 Second Rule & Ball Control
A goalkeeper who controls the ball with the hands or arms inside their own penalty area for more than eight seconds concedes a corner kick to the opposing team. This replaced the old six second rule, which was punished with an indirect free kick and was almost never enforced.
Goalkeeper Handball Outside the Area
Outside their own penalty area the goalkeeper has exactly the same handling restrictions as any other player, which means the ordinary handball test applies to them and not a stricter one. A handball offence there is a direct free kick, and a sending-off where it denies a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Handball
Not every touch of a hand or arm is an offence, and the Laws say so in those words. There are three separate offences: deliberately touching the ball with the hand or arm, touching it with a hand or arm that has made the body unnaturally bigger, and scoring directly from the hand or arm or immediately after it, even accidentally.
High Foot & Scissor Kick
A raised foot near an opponent is dangerous play where the player is trying to play the ball and the action threatens injury, which needs no contact and gives an indirect free kick. A scissors or bicycle kick is permissible provided it is not dangerous to an opponent.
Holding & Shirt Pulling
Holding an opponent is a direct free kick offence, and a penalty kick where a player holds inside their own penalty area. The Laws define it narrowly: a holding offence occurs only where contact with an opponent's body or equipment impedes their movement, which is what makes a shirt pull holding and an incidental touch of a shirt no offence at all. The practical guidelines single out corner kicks and free kicks, and print a ladder for them: warn, then caution, then penalise.
Jumping at an Opponent
Jumping at an opponent is one of the seven offences that become a direct free kick where the referee judges them careless, reckless or made with excessive force. The Laws' own wording carries the distinction: the offence is jumping at an opponent, not jumping for the ball, so a fair aerial contest where contact is incidental is not covered by it at all.
Impeding an Opponent (Obstruction)
Impeding an opponent splits by contact. Without contact it is an indirect free kick, and only where a player moves into the opponent's path while the ball is outside the playing distance of both of them. With contact it is a direct free kick, and a penalty inside the area.
Offside: Interfering with Play
Being in an offside position is not an offence by itself. A player is only penalised on becoming involved in active play, by interfering with play, by interfering with an opponent, or by gaining an advantage.
Offside from Deflections & Deliberate Play
A player in an offside position who receives the ball from an opponent who deliberately played it is not considered to have gained an advantage. A deflection off an opponent who had no control is not deliberate play, and a deliberate save is the express exception that keeps the offence.
Returning from Offside Position
Offside position is fixed at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate, and it is fixed again at every such moment. A player who was in an offside position when one ball was played is not in one when the next ball is played, if by then they are behind the second-last opponent or the ball.
The Offside Trap
The offside trap is a defensive tactic where defenders step forward together to leave attackers in offside positions. Nothing in the Laws restricts it, but two things bound it: the position is fixed at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate, and a defender who leaves the field of play is still counted, so stepping off does not take a defender out of the calculation.
Offside
A player is in an offside position if any part of the head, body or feet is in the opponents' half and nearer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent, judged at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate. Being in that position is not an offence on its own.
Penalty Kick
A penalty kick is awarded when a direct free kick offence is committed by a player inside their own penalty area. What happens after an offence at the kick depends on who offended and on what the kick produced, and encroachment by an outfield player is penalised only where it clearly impacted an opponent or changed the outcome.
Persistent Fouling
A player is cautioned for persistent offences. The Law is explicit that no specific number or pattern of offences constitutes persistent, so there is no threshold to count to and the judgement is the referee's.
Entering & Leaving the Field Without Permission
Players must have the referee's permission to enter or leave the field of play during a match, and doing so without it is cautionable. An outfield player treated or assessed on the field must then stay off it for one minute of running clock after the restart.
Pushing an Opponent
Pushing is one of the seven offences that become a direct free kick where the referee judges them careless, reckless or made with excessive force. The opponent does not have to fall: the outcome is not the test. Inside the offender's own penalty area it is a penalty kick.
Red Card & Serious Foul Play
A player is sent off for serious foul play, violent conduct, denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, biting or spitting at someone, offensive, insulting or abusive language or actions, a second caution in the same match, or entering the video operation room. The player is sent off and cannot be replaced.
Simulation (Diving)
Simulation is an attempt to deceive the referee, for example by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled. It is cautionable as unsporting behaviour. The test is the attempt to deceive, not the presence or absence of contact.
Substitutions
In official competitions the rules may permit up to five substitutions per team in a match. A substituted player cannot return, except in youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football where return substitutions are permitted. New for 2026/27: the player coming off must be off the field within ten seconds, and a team that ignores this loses the substitute for around a minute.
Throw-in
A throw-in must be taken with both hands from behind and over the head, with both feet on or behind the touchline. An incorrect throw-in gives possession to the opposing team. New for 2026/27: a team that unfairly delays a throw-in loses it to their opponents after a five-second countdown.
Time Wasting & Delaying Restarts
Delaying a restart is a cautionable offence, but only where the delay is excessive. Laws 3, 15 and 16 take the restart itself first: a substitute who does not leave within ten seconds, a throw-in not taken within a five-second countdown, and a goal kick not taken within the same countdown all cost the team the restart before any card is considered. A goalkeeper who controls the ball for more than eight seconds concedes a corner kick.
Tripping an Opponent
Tripping or attempting to trip an opponent is a direct free kick where the referee judges it careless, reckless or made with excessive force. The Laws name the attempt as well as the act, so the opponent does not have to go down. Inside the offender's own penalty area it is a penalty kick.
VAR (Video Assistant Referee)
VAR can only intervene for a clear and obvious error or a serious missed incident, and only within five defined categories: goal, penalty, red card, mistaken identity, and a clearly incorrectly awarded corner kick. The fifth is new for 2026/27 and is a competition option, so it is not available everywhere.
Yellow Card & Cautions
A player is cautioned for unsporting behaviour, dissent by word or action, persistent offences, delaying the restart of play, failing to respect the required distance at a restart, and entering, re-entering or deliberately leaving the field without permission. Two cautions in the same match are a sending-off. Several 2026/27 delay offences now cost the team the restart instead of bringing a card.