Laws five & six: The officials

A soccer match is officiated by at least one and up to four officials.  The main official is called the referee; his or her two assistants are called the assistant referees, and occasionally at the highest levels of play, a fourth official is a part of the crew.



The referee:

Each game has one referee, whose job it is to run up and down the pitch with the players, keeping play moving, and penalizing rule infractions. Officially the referee has full authority to enforce the laws of the game. A list of the referee's most important duties:

 - Watch out for rule violations, and hand out the appropriate penalties
 - Keep track of the game time and award extra time when required
 - Stop the match if necessary in the case of serious injury, outside interference, etc.
 - Punish players guilty of multiple offences
 - Keep a match report of the game. This is actually a very important job, as suspensions and other off-field punishments are determined by the listed offence in the match report

Unlike most other sports, only one referee participates on the pitch in any given match. The assistant referees can provide input but the ultimate law of the game is enforced by the one head ref. As one might imagine, it's difficult for one person to keep track of 22 players and a ball at the same time, which can lead to fairly big mistakes in rule enforcement.

The assistant referees:

Two assistant referees are assigned to each match. The assistant referee's main job is to enforce byline and touchline violations, and enforce the offside rule, which we'll discuss later. The assistant referee's are the ones who determine which side touched the ball last when it goes out of play, and therefore which side gets a throw-in/corner kick/goal kick/ etc. The assistant referees can also make calls and advise the head ref, though ultimate discretion falls to the head referee on those calls. One assistant referee patrols each touchline. Teams also report substitutions to the assistant referees.

The fourth official:

At the very highest levels of play, a fourth official is sometimes used, whose job is mostly administrative. They keep track of the time, display and keep track of substitutions, etc.