Drop Ball

A drop ball is Law 8's catch-all restart: the referee has stopped play, but nothing in the Laws points to a throw-in, free kick, corner, goal kick or kick-off. Typical triggers are an injury with no foul, outside interference, the ball striking a match official, or the ball becoming defective.

Since the 2019 reform the drop ball is uncontested. The referee drops it for a single player of the team that last touched the ball (or, in a 50-50, the team that would have gained possession). The other team simply has to stay 4 m away.

Law 8 sends every drop ball inside the penalty area to the defending goalkeeper, in his own penalty area.

An outside agent is anyone or anything not part of the match: a spectator, a dog, a stray ball from the next pitch. Substitutes and team officials count as 'extra persons' (Law 3), and match officials have their own rule in Law 9, so none of them is an outside agent.

Before 2019 the referee dropped the ball between one player from each team and they fought for it. It produced dangerous lunges and gamesmanship, so IFAB replaced it with a drop to a single player.

The referee simply lets the ball fall from his hand at the correct position once every other player is at least 4 m away; it is in play the moment it touches the ground.

Law 8 requires every player except the receiver, from both teams, to remain at least 4 m (4.5 yds) from the ball until it is in play. 9.15 m is the free-kick and corner distance; 5.5 m is the width of the goal area, not a restart distance.

The ball is in play the instant it touches the ground. That is why nobody may play it in mid-air, and why the 4 m restriction only lasts until it lands.

Law 9 stops play when the ball touches a match official and possession changes, a promising attack starts, or the ball goes straight into the goal; the restart is a drop ball for the team that last touched the ball.

When the last touch is unclear (a loose 50-50, a deflection nobody controlled), the referee judges which team was going to end up with the ball and drops it to them. It is a judgement call, not a coin toss.

The 4 m minimum is a condition of the restart; the referee holds the ball up until everyone is back before dropping it.

Law 8 says a goal from a drop ball only counts if the ball has touched at least two players. The receiver alone is not enough, which is why a first-time shot straight from the drop cannot score.

The drop is taken at the position where the ball last touched a player, an outside agent or a match official, not simply wherever the ball happened to be rolling when the whistle went.

Once the ball touches the ground it is simply in play. The receiver can dribble, shoot, pass or clear it exactly as at any other moment of the match; there is no touch limit at a drop ball.

Law 8 sets no clock on the drop ball. But refusing to come and take it is delaying the restart of play, which is a cautionable offence under Law 12.

The 4 m ring applies to all 21 other players, team-mates included. Only the goalkeeper, as the designated receiver, may be inside it.

Law 8 has the referee drop the ball for the defending goalkeeper in his own penalty area.

The restriction ends the moment the ball is in play, which is when it touches the ground. Opponents may then close the receiver down immediately: a drop ball does not buy him a free second on the ball.

No height is prescribed. Referees typically release the ball from around waist or chest height so that everyone can see it fall cleanly to the ground.

The ball must reach the ground to be in play, so a touch in mid-air means the restart has not happened and the referee simply drops it again.

With no foul and the ball still on the field, none of the Law's specific restarts fits, so the referee uses a drop ball.

An outside agent cannot be punished with a free kick: it is not a player. The stoppage fits none of the specific restarts, so Law 8's drop ball is used, and the ball goes back to the team that last touched it.

A goal has its own restart: a kick-off taken by the team that conceded. Drop balls exist precisely for the stoppages the Laws do not otherwise cover.

The ball leaving the field always has a defined restart, so a drop ball is never used; off a defender over his own goal line it is a corner kick.

Law 9 lists exactly three consequences that stop play after the ball strikes a match official: possession changes, a promising attack starts, or the ball goes straight in. If the ball simply bounces back to the same team with nothing gained, play carries on.

The referee punishes the more serious offence, but when the two are of equal severity there is nobody to award the kick to. Play restarts with a drop ball to the team that last touched the ball.

A defective ball is a Law 2 stoppage with no offence attached, so it restarts with a drop ball at the position where the ball became defective, for the team that last touched it.

The referee stops play for an outside agent only if it actually interferes: touches the ball or a player, or forces the players to change what they are doing. A harmless dog on the far touchline can be dealt with at the next natural stoppage.

A team official is an 'extra person' under Law 3, not an outside agent, so his interference is punished with a direct free kick, not a drop ball.

A drop ball is only for stoppages the Laws do not otherwise cover. Here the Laws do cover it: there was a foul, so the restart is the free kick for that foul, whatever treatment follows.

The ball must touch at least two players before a goal counts from a drop ball; a shot straight from the drop is disallowed and the defending team gets a goal kick.

The two-player rule cuts both ways. If the ball goes into the dropping team's own goal without touching two players, no goal is given and the opponents get a corner kick.

Every other player must be at least 4 m from the ball until it touches the ground. The moment it lands, though, an opponent may close in and challenge normally.

Nothing about a drop ball suspends the goalkeeper's handling privileges once the ball is on the ground and in play inside his own penalty area.

There is no freeze at a drop ball. Players may move as they wish provided nobody except the receiver comes inside 4 m before the ball touches the ground.

The ball is only in play once it touches the ground, so it has to be dropped, not handed over. Handing it to a player would leave the ball out of play in his hands.

Once the ball is in play, the receiver has the same rights as at any other moment, including kicking it straight out of play.

Delaying the restart of play is a cautionable offence under Law 12, and it applies to a drop ball exactly as it does to a throw-in or a free kick.

A drop ball never replaces a restart the Laws already define. The ball left the field, so it is a corner, a goal kick or a throw-in, and the referee has to make a decision, however unsighted he was.

Law 8 says the ball is dropped for one player of that team; it does not say which one. In practice the team sends a player forward, and inside the penalty area it must be the goalkeeper.

The restart was not valid because an opponent was inside the 4 m ring, so the drop is taken again.

Two players have touched the ball, so the two-player condition is satisfied and the goal counts. The 'no direct goal' rule only protects against a goal scored before a second player has been involved.

The drop always follows the last touch, whatever the tactical picture. The goalkeeper only becomes the automatic receiver when the stoppage or the last touch happened inside his penalty area.

The position of a drop ball is part of the Law: it is where the ball last touched a player, an outside agent or a match official, or inside the penalty area when the goalkeeper receives it. The referee corrects himself before dropping it.

The restart belongs to that team, but they cannot hold the game up. The referee drops the ball, it is in play when it lands, and persistent delaying is cautioned.

The drop ball is decided by the last touch and by where play stopped, not by the number of players on the pitch. A red card changes nothing about the restart.

Since the 2025/26 Laws a goalkeeper may control the ball with his hands for a maximum of eight seconds; beyond that the opponents get a corner kick.

The ball was in play, so this is an ordinary foul and is punished in the ordinary way. There is no retake: the team keeps the advantage of the restart in the shape of a free kick.

As soon as the ball touches the ground it is in play, so an ordinary throw-in follows the receiver's touch out of play.

Law 5 lets the referee change a decision only while the ball is out of play. Once play has restarted and gone on, a wrong drop ball, like a wrongly awarded throw-in, has to stand.

The 2019/20 Laws replaced the contested drop with a drop to one player of the team that last touched the ball, alongside the new 4 m distance rule.

Two players lunging at a bouncing ball produced needless injuries, and a drop ball could hand a team possession it had never earned. Dropping the ball to whoever touched it last removed both problems at once.

Match officials were treated as part of the field of play, so a deflection off the referee was just bad luck. Since 2019, play is stopped if that deflection changes possession, starts a promising attack, or puts the ball in the goal.

The same rewrite of Law 8 introduced the 4 m minimum distance for all other players, which is what makes an uncontested drop actually uncontested.

Dropping a contested ball close to goal handed attackers a chance created by an accident, not by play; giving it to the goalkeeper avoids that manufactured chance.

The old Law moved a drop inside the goal area out to the goal area line, at the point nearest to where the ball was. Since 2019 the question does not arise: any drop in the penalty area goes to the goalkeeper.

Football has always needed a way to restart after a neutral stoppage; only who gets the ball changed in 2019, not whether the restart exists.

Injuries, outside agents and burst balls have always been restarted with a drop ball. A deflection off a match official did not stop play at all until Law 9 was changed in 2019.

The Law knew nothing about who touched the ball last: the referee dropped it between two opponents and they fought for it. Any 'giving it back' was an informal fair-play gesture after the restart, not part of the Law.

Law 8, 'The Start and Restart of Play', covers the kick-off and the dropped ball. Law 9 defines ball in and out of play (including deflections off officials), Law 12 covers fouls, and Law 16 the goal kick.

Inside the penalty area the location rule beats the last-touch rule: the ball is dropped for the defending goalkeeper wherever the last touch came from.

A match official is not a player, so the last player touch still decides. Law 8 sends the ball to the team that last touched it, and the drop is taken where the ball touched the official.

The ball is dropped again if it leaves the field after touching the ground without any player touching it, since the restart never happened properly.

The drop is for one player. The second team-mate is subject to the same 4 m rule as everybody else and must get out of the ring before the referee lets go of the ball.

Only a penalty kick extends a half. A drop ball does not, so if time is up the referee simply ends the half.

A team must always have a goalkeeper, so an outfield player takes over the role. That player is the goalkeeper for every purpose in the Laws, including receiving a drop ball inside the penalty area.

Touching the ground put the ball in play, so the restart is complete and the later deflection off the referee is judged under Law 9 like any other.

The back-pass rule is untouched by the drop ball. A ball deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper by a team-mate may not be handled, and the punishment is an indirect free kick from where he handled it.

A deflection off a match official stops play only if it changes possession, starts a promising attack or goes into the goal. A ball that reaches the same team is none of those, so nothing is restarted.

Play was already stopped, so the misconduct is dealt with by a card and the original restart is unaffected. Disciplinary action and the choice of restart are two separate questions.

A kick-off has two triggers: the start of a period of play, and a goal. Everything on the drop-ball list (injury, outside agent, defective ball, referee deflection) is a stoppage the Laws do not otherwise cover.

A free kick is a sanction for an offence; a drop ball is neutral, so the ball goes back where it came from rather than punishing anyone.

Opponents must be 9.15 m (10 yds) from a free kick or a corner, but only 4 m from a drop ball. The shorter ring is enough because nobody is contesting the drop.

A direct free kick can be scored straight from the kick. A drop ball cannot: the ball must touch at least two players, otherwise the restart is a goal kick (or a corner if it went into the taker's own goal).

A goal kick is taken from any point in the goal area; a drop ball has no such freedom, its position is fixed by the Law.

A throw-in punishes the team that put the ball out, so it goes to their opponents; a drop ball punishes nobody, so it goes back to the team that last touched it.

The 4 m ring, the ground contact and the two-player rule are identical everywhere. Only the receiver changes: inside the penalty area it is always the defending goalkeeper.

Law 12 makes delaying the restart of play a cautionable offence without distinguishing between restarts. Wasting time at a drop ball earns the same yellow card as wasting time at a free kick.

Both need a second player before a goal can count, but the distance is not the same: opponents retreat 9.15 m from a free kick and 4 m from a drop ball, which is why the two restarts feel so different to take.

Every drop ball follows the same procedure: the referee drops it for one player of the team that last touched, others stay 4 m away, the ball is in play when it lands. The trigger has no bearing on how it is taken.

No foul, so no free kick, and the ball never left the field. The drop goes to the team that last touched it, which is Team A, even though the injured player belongs to Team B.

The stray ball is an outside agent: it decides that play stops, not where the restart happens. The drop is taken where the match ball was last touched, which here is a Team A player, not where the stray ball came in.

Possession changed because of the deflection, so Law 9 requires play to stop, and the ball goes back to the team that last touched it, Team A.

A ball that goes directly into the goal after touching a match official is one of Law 9's three triggers, so the goal is disallowed and a drop ball follows.

A defective ball is a neutral stoppage: it is nobody's fault. The drop is taken at the point where the ball burst, for the team that last touched it, Team B.

A second player has touched the ball, and the Law says nothing about who he plays for or how far out he shoots. Only a goal scored before that second touch is disallowed.

The goalkeeper rule needs the ball to have been in the penalty area, or last touched there; five metres outside satisfies neither, so it is an ordinary drop to the team that last touched it.

Law 11 waives offside only at a goal kick, a throw-in and a corner kick. A drop ball is not on that list, so a player in an offside position who is played in is penalised exactly as in open play.

A stoppage in error is exactly what the drop ball is for: no offence, no ball out of play, no defined restart. The referee drops the ball for the team that last touched it, at the place it last touched them.

The 4 m ring only lasts until the ball touches the ground. After that the receiver has no protection at all, and an opponent who was legally outside the ring may challenge for the ball immediately.

A drop ball covers the stoppages the Laws leave unaccounted for. A floodlight failure is one of them; the other three each have their own restart, a throw-in or corner, a kick-off, and a free kick.

The uncontested drop is the whole point of the modern Law: the ball is dropped for one player of the team that last touched it, and everybody else is 4 m away, so there is nothing to fight for.

Law 8 gives the ball to the defending goalkeeper if, when play was stopped, the ball was in the penalty area or its last touch had been in the penalty area.

The drop ball is not protected possession. The 4 m ring dies the moment the ball touches the ground, and from then on the opponents may press and tackle exactly as in open play.

The ball is only in play once it touches the ground, so nothing that happens in mid-air counts, and the referee simply drops the ball again.

One player receives the ball; every other player on the field, from both teams, must be at least 4 m away until the ball touches the ground.

The ball leaving the field always has its own restart: throw-in, corner or goal kick. The other three are stoppages the Laws do not otherwise cover, which is exactly when a drop ball is used.

Every player except the one receiving it must be at least four metres away until the ball is in play. If one is not, the drop is retaken rather than played on.

A deflection off a match official only stops play if possession changes, a promising attack starts, or the ball goes straight into the goal; none of that happened here.

Handball offences can only be committed while the ball is in play, and the dropped ball is not in play until it touches the ground. There is no free kick: the referee simply drops the ball again.