Taking Corners

[Daij]

I was watching MOTD and noticed that corner takers raised one of their arms just before they were about to kick the ball. What does this arm raising mean?

[lankeela]

Its to notify their team mates that they are about to kick the ball in the direction/set play they have probably practised.

[bobbinwales]

If it was my team they were probly just apologizing in advance for a poor corner

[bobbinwales]

Have also noticed the corner takers go to great lengths to place the ball as far as allowed outside the quadrant so long as 1mm of the ball is above the outside of the line. Don't ever remember doing that when playing in my day

[bluemoon1]

No bobbinwales, in fact when I played the ball always had to be inside the quadrant or else the opposition went skriking to the ref.

[Buenchico]

^^^ In which case, Bluemoon1, I hope that the ref put them straight about the rules!

A boundary line on a football pitch always counts as part of the area which it encloses. So the arc around a corner quadrant counts as part of that quadrant. As long as any part of the ball is within the quadrant (which includes the arc) the corner kick is being taken lawfully. So placing the ball with its base just outside the quadrant, but with a tiny part of it still above the arc, is perfectly acceptable.

That's unless the rules have changed since my own refereeing days, of course ;-)

[bobbinwales]

Hi Buenchico. Am clear about the whole of the ball and whole of the line rule for corners, goals, touchlines but wasnt sure about penalties. For consistency is the taker allowed to stand the ball 4.3 inches in front of the penalty spot as that means part of the ball would just be over a point just inside the spot??

[grumpy01]

When I queried about where a corner should be taken I was querying for the sake it.

[Buenchico]

An interesting point, Bobb.

Law 14 states that "the ball must be stationary on the penalty mark", which I see as different to those rules which require the ball to be within a specific area. So the flexibility in postioing the ball, which applies when taking a corner, doesn't seem to exist when a penalty kick is being taken.

BTW: I love the part of Law 14 which states "the goalposts, crossbar and goal net must not be moving". Is that in the laws, I wonder, to allow for games being played in a hurricane? ;-)

[Everhelpful]

The Corner situation? Where is the advantage of placing the ball on the edge,it is cheating in my book.

[Canary42]

/// Where is the advantage ///

It gives marginally more clearance from the (possibly obstructive) corner flag post for the kicker.

[bluemoon1]

That last point reminded me of a game once where there was some dispute between the officials and a player taking a corner.
The player claimed he didn't have enough clearance and took the flag out and threw it. There was then some dispute as to whether the flag had to be in the hole or not. My memory isn't brilliant so can't remember what the outcome was. Anybody remember it?

[Buenchico]

In my refereeing days, I encountered the problem of players removing the corner flag, in order to take a corner kick more easily, many times. I always made them replace it first though, as required by the laws of the game.