Players still confused over ball-out-of-play rule

NYON, Switzerland (Reuters) - Players are still voluntarily kicking the ball into touch when an opponent goes down injured despite directives that they should wait for the referee's whistle, UEFA said on Thursday.

There were several instances at Euro 2012 of players looking to the referee to stop the game when an opponent went down injured in line with the old fair play principle and sometimes kicking it out themselves.

Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, speaking after a meeting of some of Europe's top coaches at UEFA headquarters, said his players sometimes ignored his advice to continue with the game.

"You have a conflict between the new rule, where it is left to the referee, and the old fair play attitude, which is culturally accepted in our game and which is that when a guy is really injured, you have kick the ball out," he told reporters.

"I believe it's right that the responsibility goes to the referee because you never know how genuine the injury is when a player is down.

"But still, we are not completely clear yet about how to behave. I say to my players to leave it to the referee, but sometimes they kick the ball out. They are scared of being unpopular or criticised by the media if they don't do it."

UEFA's technical director Andy Roxburgh said all 16 teams at Euro 2012 had been told to wait until the referee whistled before kicking the ball out because the old system had been abused by players feigning injury.

"Our refereeing instructors went to every one of the 16 teams in advance and told them what the interpretations would be," he said.

"It's one of the reasons why the behaviour of the players was so good at the Euro, because we told them what the referees would jump on and what the emphasis would be.

"One would be that the referee would decide when to stop the match, but old habits die hard.

"They know it should be the referee who decides and the reason that was brought in is because there was too much misuse.....sometimes a team would have a counterattack and suddenly they had to stop, that kind of thing."

"There was a lot of misuse and when you gave the ball back, they would put it down in the far corner and would press, which was totally against sporting spirit, so this is why the referee has the responsibility to stop the game when it needs to be stopped.

"But we still get it, they put it out because it's habit."