I quote from IFAB Laws of the game 2020/21:

"All free kicks are taken from the place where the offence occurred, except:

1. indirect free kicks to the attacking team for an offence inside the opponents’ goal area are taken from the nearest point on the goal area line which runs parallel to the goal line

2. free kicks to the defending team in their goal area may be taken from anywhere in that area

3. free kicks for offences involving a player entering, re-entering or leaving the field of play without permission are taken from the position of the ball when play was stopped. However, if a player commits an offence off the field of play, play is restarted with a free kick taken on the boundary line nearest to where the offence occurred; for direct free kick offences a penalty kick is awarded if this is within the offender’s penalty area

4. where the Law designates another position (see Laws 3, 11, 12)"

Edited by Willo (25 Dec 2020 9.29am)

There are exceptions as I have quoted where one can take a free kick from a different position to where the offence occurred, however in the situation whereby if one is awarded a free kick around the edge of the area one cannot take it 10 yards further back, for example.

"Time wasting" has evolved into "Game management" !!

Edited by Willo (25 Dec 2020 10.11am)

In bygone days there was a referee and a 'Linesman' on each side of the pitch.Nowadays the latter are referred to as "Assistants".
Now we have those 3 officials, in addition to a 4th official and more recently a VAR.
There had been discussion a while ago of having 2 referees, 1 in each half but nothing progressed on this front!
Perhaps in the not too distant future there will be more officials than players!! Furthermore there will still be controversy!

Edited by Willo (25 Dec 2020 10.31am)

Would have thought consistency would be a real problem with two referees! It’s bad enough with one.

True. Perhaps the refs could swap halves every 15 minutes to minimise accusations of bias.

all the controversy can often be the best part of the entertainment. Let it continue.

but a fella deliberately bouncing a ball off an opposition player to get a nice slowly-taken free throw-in ? And then repeating the trick again.... its killing the game.

i recall Ryan Giggs at Selhurst having a 3 minute sincere 'conversation' with the ref about some trivial football rule.....and of course ManUre were leading at the time. t0sser.

Do you think Giggs would have been so interested in the finer points of refereeing if ManUre had been chasing the game ? a snowballs chance in hell.

All the time-wasting has now got so bad that i 'Sky-Thai' it. ie beat the boredom by watching the game 3 or 4 minutes out of sync on my Sky box and fast forward through all the boring stuff (including when they are taking the knee, passing the ball from defender to defender to keeper, chatting with the ref ). When my sky box catches up with real-time, i pause it and make a cup of tea.

Edited by PalazioVecchio (25 Dec 2020 1.15pm)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford