Another soccer question

OK, we have a direct kick, player from team A kicks it, guy from team B gets a handball near the goal, so it's a PK.

Player from Team A approaches, hesitates, kicks ball into goal. Official whistles it dead, calls a "hesitation," gets ball from net and allows player to rekick PK, which he again makes. He told Team B coach since it went in the first time, he couldn't not let the kid re kick.

I don't know what the hell happened. It seems that if "hesitation" is actually a rule — one neither team A coach nor a couple soccer maniacs I talked to had never heard of — it would end the PK opportunity, not just allow him another chance ...

Thoughts? What the hell happened?

 

I know that in professional leagues, you're actually allowed to hesitate on PKs. As far as the ruling, one think that the official would blow the kick dead even before the kid kicked it and not allow another PK. All in all, I think it's just a case of "highschoolrefereeism".

 

From an interpretation of Law 14, regarding the penalty kick, if the referee thought the penalty taker's hesitation was a deliberate attempt to put the keeper off-balance before taking the kick; this could be called unsporting behaviour, in which case the player concerned would also be cautioned (shown the yellow card). In minor cases, the kick is a do-over.

 

I wrote the article today and I'm still not sure what the heck happened. I called the state athletic agency and that guy had apparently already heard about the matter. he said the call was the goalie moving forward too soon, not a hesitation or anything.

That wasn't at all what the official said when he came to the sideline, or at least not at all how I interpreted it.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

 

Basically, to further simplify what Flash said, PKs are supposed to be taken in one motion. The situation your state rep described is encroachment, which certainly is not what you saw.

It's another one of those rules that, while on the books, is rarely enforced.

 

If the goalkeeper moved forward too soon, but the offensive player scored anyway, the referee shouldn't have done anything. It'd be akin to the advantage play when a referee allows play to continue when a defensive player fouls an offensive player. In that instance, stopping play would have helped the defense, so play continues.

It's also a reason football teams decline penalties when the result of the play would help more than penalty yardage would.