17 Laws of Football: Every Law of the Game Summarised
The 17 laws of football in order, from the field of play to the corner kick, with what each one governs and how the FA applies them across England.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Referees, VAR & Laws26 min read
- Laws in the book
- 17
- Present structure adopted
- 1938
- Players per side
- 11, minimum 7
- Law-making body
- IFAB, founded 1886
A referee at Old Trafford and a referee on a parks pitch in Leeds work from the same book. It contains seventeen Laws, numbered 1 to 17, and it is written by the International Football Association Board, on which the Football Association holds one of eight votes. The FA then applies that text to every affiliated match in England, from a Wembley final down to the bottom division of a county league.
The 17 laws of football, in order, are: the field of play, the ball, the players, the players' equipment, the referee, the other match officials, the duration of the match, the start and restart of play, the ball in and out of play, determining the outcome of a match, offside, fouls and misconduct, free kicks, the penalty kick, the throw-in, the goal kick and the corner kick. Four fix the conditions, two cover the officials, four frame the match and seven deal with offences and restarts. They are Laws, not rules, and the book capitalises the word.
The 17 Laws of football in order, with what each one governs
Nobody needs to memorise the numbers to follow a match, but the numbering is how referees, coaches and disciplinary panels talk. A red card for a two-footed lunge is "a Law 12 decision". Commentators have picked up the habit too, usually with Law 11.
| Law | Title | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Field of Play | The dimensions, markings, goals and surface of the pitch |
| 2 | The Ball | Size, weight, pressure and what happens if the ball bursts |
| 3 | The Players | Eleven a side, the minimum of seven, and the substitution procedure |
| 4 | The Players' Equipment | Compulsory kit, colours and what may not be worn |
| 5 | The Referee | The referee's authority, powers, duties and signals |
| 6 | The Other Match Officials | Assistants, the fourth official and the video match officials |
| 7 | The Duration of the Match | Two halves of 45 minutes, the interval and added time |
| 8 | The Start and Restart of Play | The coin toss, the kick-off and the dropped ball |
| 9 | The Ball In and Out of Play | When play is live and when it is dead |
| 10 | Determining the Outcome of a Match | What counts as a goal and how a winner is found |
| 11 | Offside | The offside position and the offside offence |
| 12 | Fouls and Misconduct | Free-kick offences, handball, cautions and sendings-off |
| 13 | Free Kicks | Direct and indirect free kicks and how they are taken |
| 14 | The Penalty Kick | The procedure, the offences and the retakes |
| 15 | The Throw-in | Restarting after the ball crosses a touchline |
| 16 | The Goal Kick | Restarting after the attackers put the ball over the goal line |
| 17 | The Corner Kick | Restarting after the defenders put the ball over the goal line |
- 17Laws in the book
- 11Players per side at kick-off
- 7Minimum players for a match to continue
- 45Minutes in each half
Fixed figures from Laws 3 and 7 and from the structure of the book itself. Competitions cannot vary them at senior level.
One point of vocabulary. The book never says "rules". Competitions have rules, covering registration, discipline and promotion. The Laws cover only what happens on the field and immediately around it. Who writes them, and how they are amended each year, is the subject of our guide to the International Football Association Board.
Laws 1 to 4: the pitch, the ball, the players and their kit
These four are the conditions that must be met before a referee will start a match. They are the Laws a groundsman, a kit manager and a club secretary deal with.
Law 1, the field of play
A pitch is a rectangle marked with continuous lines no wider than 12 centimetres, and the lines belong to the areas they enclose. That last clause is why a ball is still in play when part of it overhangs the touchline and why a foul on the line of the penalty area is a penalty. The Law gives a range of sizes, which is how a tight Football League pitch and Wembley can both be legal: a touchline of 90 to 120 metres and a goal line of 45 to 90, narrowed for international matches to 100 to 110 and 64 to 75.
The odd-looking metric figures are imperial ones in translation. Eight yards by eight feet for the goal, twelve yards for the penalty mark, eighteen yards for the penalty area, ten yards for the centre circle. The Laws were written in England in yards, and the book still prints the imperial figure in brackets beside each metric one.
Law 2, the ball
The ball is spherical, with a circumference between 68 and 70 centimetres and a weight between 410 and 450 grams at the start of the match. If it bursts during play, the referee stops the game and restarts with a dropped ball. It cannot be changed without the referee's permission.
Law 3, the players
Each team has a maximum of eleven players, one of whom must be the goalkeeper. A match may not start or continue if either team has fewer than seven.
Law 3 also holds the substitution procedure, and here the Law hands part of the decision to the competition. It sets a ceiling and a method. The number actually allowed in the Premier League or the EFL comes from those leagues' own rules, which we cover in our guide to substitutions in the Premier League. From the 2026-27 edition, a player being replaced has ten seconds to leave the field once the board is shown. Miss that, and the substitute waits until the first stoppage after one minute has passed since the restart.
Law 4, the players' equipment
Compulsory equipment is a shirt with sleeves, shorts, socks, shinguards and footwear. The two teams must wear colours that distinguish them from each other and from the match officials, and each goalkeeper must be distinguishable from everyone else. A player may wear nothing the referee considers dangerous. Slogans or images of a political, religious or personal nature are prohibited on any item of kit.
Laws 5 and 6: the referee and the other match officials
Law 5 opens plainly. Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with that match. Everything else in the two Laws is detail hanging from that line.
The referee's decisions are to be made to the best of the referee's ability according to the Laws and the "spirit of the game", and are based on the referee's own opinion. Then comes the clause that settles most arguments before they start. Decisions regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final. A club cannot have a result overturned because the referee got an offside wrong. Finality is the price of having a result at all.
There is a narrow window for a change of mind. A referee may alter a decision on realising it is wrong, or on advice from another official, provided play has not restarted and the referee has not signalled the end of the half and left the field. Once the free kick is taken, the earlier error stands, which is why a VAR check has to be completed before the restart.
What the referee can do
The list of powers in Law 5 is long: stopping, suspending or abandoning a match; acting as timekeeper; allowing play to continue when the offended team benefits; and taking disciplinary action from the moment of entering the field for the pre-match inspection until leaving it after the final whistle. Since 2019 a manager or coach can be shown a yellow or red card in the same way as a player.
A newer duty arrived with the 2026-27 edition. A player who receives assessment or treatment on the field, or whose injury causes play to be stopped, must go off and stay off for one minute after play restarts, subject to exceptions listed in the Law.
What the others add
Law 6 lists the other match officials: two assistant referees, a fourth official, and where a competition uses them, additional assistant referees, a reserve assistant referee, a video assistant referee and at least one assistant VAR. Every one of them assists. None of them decides, and the referee's decision prevails when officials disagree.
Assistants indicate when the whole ball has left the field, which side gets the restart, and offside. The fourth official supervises substitutions, manages the technical areas and shows the added time. The video officials are confined to a short list of match-changing decisions, set out in a protocol printed at the back of the book.
Laws 7 to 10: how a match is timed, started and won
Ninety minutes, in two equal halves of 45. That is Law 7 in a sentence, and the length can be reduced only if the referee and both teams agree before kick-off and the competition rules allow it. The half-time interval must not exceed fifteen minutes.
The interesting part of Law 7 is the allowance for time lost. The referee adds time for substitutions, injuries, time-wasting, disciplinary sanctions, drinks breaks, video reviews and goal celebrations. The fourth official shows the minimum at the end of the 45th minute, and the referee may add to it but may not reduce it.
Law 8, the start and restart of play
A coin is tossed, and the winner chooses which goal to attack or to take the kick-off. Every player except the taker must be in their own half, opponents at least 9.15 metres from the ball, and the ball is in play once it is kicked and clearly moves. It may go in any direction, a change made in 2016 that ended the two-man shuffle on the centre spot.
The dropped ball is the restart for stoppages that are nobody's fault. In its modern form it is uncontested. The ball is dropped for the defending goalkeeper if play stopped with the ball in the penalty area, and otherwise for one player of the team that had possession or would have gained it, with everyone else at least four metres away.
Law 9, the ball in and out of play
The ball is out of play when the whole of it has passed over a goal line or touchline, on the ground or in the air, or when the referee has stopped play. It stays in play off a post, a crossbar or a corner flag. If it strikes a match official and then goes into the goal, changes possession or starts a promising attack, play is stopped for a dropped ball.
Law 10, determining the outcome of a match
A goal is scored when the whole of the ball passes over the goal line, between the posts and under the crossbar, provided the scoring team has committed no offence. The side with more goals wins, and equal scores mean a draw. Where competition rules require a winner, the Law permits three procedures and no others: the away goals rule, two equal periods of extra time of no more than fifteen minutes each, and penalties, the shoot-out that the book called kicks from the penalty mark until the 2023-24 edition renamed it. A competition may combine them. The shoot-out has a procedure of its own: five kicks each taken alternately, then sudden death.
Law 11: offside is a position before it is an offence
Start with what Law 11 does not say. It is not an offence to be in an offside position. The Law's opening line says so in terms, and nearly every pub argument about offside comes from skipping it.
A player is in an offside position if any part of the head, body or feet is in the opponents' half, excluding the halfway line, and nearer to the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. Hands and arms are not counted, for attackers or defenders, and the arm for this purpose begins at the bottom of the armpit. A player level with the second-last opponent, or with the last two, is not in an offside position.
The position is judged at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate. It becomes an offence only if the player then becomes involved in active play in one of three ways: interfering with play by playing or touching the ball; interfering with an opponent, for example by blocking the goalkeeper's line of vision or challenging for the ball; or gaining an advantage by playing the ball after it has rebounded from a post, a crossbar, an official or an opponent, or after a deliberate save.
- Moment of the passFreeze play at the instant a team-mate plays or touches the ball.
- Which halfA player on or behind the halfway line cannot be offside.
- The two reference pointsThe player must be nearer the goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. Level is onside.
- Which restartIf the ball came direct from a goal kick, a throw-in or a corner kick, there is no offence whatever the position.
- InvolvementOnly now is the question asked whether the player interfered with play, interfered with an opponent or gained an advantage.
- SanctionAn indirect free kick where the offence occurred.
The order in which an assistant referee or a video official works through the Law. Any step can end the enquiry.
The three restarts that can never produce offside
A player cannot be penalised for offside on receiving the ball direct from a goal kick, a throw-in or a corner kick. These are choices the lawmakers made, and they shape tactics: long throws aimed at a forward standing beyond the last defender are legal for this reason, and so is a goalkeeper's long kick to a striker loitering upfield.
Free kicks carry no such exemption. Nor does a dropped ball.
Law 12: fouls, misconduct and the two card lists
This is the Law that fills disciplinary hearings. It does four separate jobs: it lists the offences that bring a direct free kick, the offences that bring an indirect one, the offences that bring a caution, and the offences that bring a sending-off. Those lists overlap, and understanding Law 12 is mostly a matter of keeping them apart.
Direct free-kick offences
Seven physical offences are judged on a scale: charging, jumping at, kicking or attempting to kick, pushing, striking or attempting to strike, tackling or challenging, and tripping or attempting to trip. Each is an offence only if committed in a manner the referee considers careless, reckless or using excessive force.
| Level | Meaning in Law 12 | Sanction beyond the free kick |
|---|---|---|
| Careless | A lack of attention or consideration, or acting without precaution | None |
| Reckless | Disregard for the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent | Caution |
| Excessive force | Exceeding the necessary use of force and endangering an opponent's safety | Sending-off |
| No offence | Fair contact made with care in a challenge for the ball | Play continues |
A second group brings a direct free kick with no scale attached: a handball offence, holding, impeding an opponent with contact, biting or spitting. Any direct free-kick offence by a defender inside their own penalty area is a penalty. The scale as it applies to challenges is examined in our guide to tackling and what makes a tackle a foul.
Indirect free-kick offences
The indirect list is shorter and stranger. Playing in a dangerous manner. Impeding an opponent without contact. Dissent. Preventing the goalkeeper from releasing the ball. And a set of goalkeeper offences inside the penalty area, such as handling a deliberate kick or a throw-in from a team-mate. One long-standing item has left the list. Since 2025-26 a goalkeeper who holds the ball for more than eight seconds concedes a corner kick, where a slower count used to bring an indirect free kick that referees almost never gave.
Cautions and sendings-off
A player is cautioned for delaying the restart of play, dissent by word or action, entering or leaving the field without permission, failing to respect the required distance at a restart, persistent offences, and unsporting behaviour, a category that takes in reckless fouls, simulation and stopping a promising attack.
The sending-off list has remained short. Denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence. Denying one by an offence punishable by a free kick. Serious foul play. Biting or spitting at someone. Violent conduct. Offensive, insulting or abusive language or actions. A second caution in the same match. The first two are the subject of our separate guide to the DOGSO rule and its four tests.
Laws 13 and 14: free kicks and the penalty kick
Ten yards. The figure every referee paces out is printed in the Laws as 9.15 metres, and it is the distance opponents must retreat from a free kick until the ball is in play.
A free kick is direct or indirect. A direct free kick can be scored straight into the opponents' goal. An indirect one cannot, and the referee signals it by raising an arm above the head and holding it there until the ball touches another player or goes out of play.
Two details of Law 13 date from the 2019 changes. The ball is in play as soon as it is kicked and clearly moves, including at a defending free kick inside the penalty area, so defenders no longer have to wait for it to leave the area. Where three or more defenders form a wall, every attacker must be at least one metre from it until the ball is in play, and an attacker who stands closer concedes an indirect free kick.
Law 14, the penalty kick
A penalty is awarded for a direct free-kick offence by a defender inside their own penalty area, wherever the ball is, provided it is in play. The ball is placed with part of it touching or overhanging the centre of the mark. The goalkeeper stays on the goal line between the posts, facing the kicker, until the kick is taken, and at the moment of the kick must have at least part of one foot touching, in line with or behind the line. Everyone else waits at least 9.15 metres from the mark, behind it and outside the area, which is what the arc on the edge of the box is for.
The kick must go forward. Feinting during the run-up is allowed. Feinting to kick once the run-up is complete is not.
What forces a retake is the part people get wrong, because it depends on who offended and on what happened to the ball.
- A goalkeeper offence, such as coming off the line early, leads to a retake if the kick is saved, or if it misses and the offence clearly affected the kicker. If the ball goes in, the goal stands.
- An attacking team-mate entering the area early matters only if it had an effect, for example scoring from a rebound. Since 2024-25 encroachment with no impact on the outcome is ignored.
- A defender encroaching and affecting play brings a retake if the kick was not scored.
- An accidental double touch by the kicker, the slip that sends the ball onto the standing foot, leads to a retake if the ball goes in, a point the Board clarified by circular in June 2025 and wrote into the Laws for 2026-27.
The complete matrix, with its exceptions, is in our guide to penalty kick retakes and encroachment.
Laws 15 to 17: throw-in, goal kick and corner kick
Each of the last three Laws answers one question: the whole ball has left the field, so who puts it back and how.
| Restart | Awarded when | Can score direct against opponents | If it goes direct into own goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Throw-in | Ball crosses a touchline, last touched by an opponent | No, a goal kick is given | Corner kick to opponents |
| Goal kick | Ball crosses the goal line, last touched by an attacker, no goal scored | Yes | Corner kick to opponents |
| Corner kick | Ball crosses the goal line, last touched by a defender, no goal scored | Yes | Corner kick to opponents |
| Kick-off | Start of each half and after every goal | Yes | Corner kick to opponents |
Law 15, the throw-in
The thrower must stand facing the field with part of each foot on the touchline or on the ground outside it, and deliver the ball with both hands from behind and over the head. Opponents must stand at least two metres away. A throw taken incorrectly goes to the other side. The technique, and the foul throw, are covered in our guide to throw-in rules.
Law 16, the goal kick
The ball is kicked from any point inside the goal area by any player of the defending team. Opponents must be outside the penalty area until it is in play. Since 2019 it is in play when it is kicked and clearly moves, so a defender can receive it inside the area, the change behind the short goal kick now seen at every level in England.
Law 17, the corner kick
The ball is placed in the corner area nearest to where it crossed the goal line. The flagpost may not be moved, and opponents stay at least 9.15 metres from the corner arc.
The time limits attached in 2026-27
For most of the game's history the only remedy for a slow throw-in or goal kick was a caution for delaying the restart, shown late and reluctantly. The 2026-27 edition gives referees a different tool. Where a referee believes a throw-in or goal kick is taking too long or is being deliberately delayed, a visible five-second countdown begins. If the ball is not back in play when it ends, a delayed throw-in is given to the opposition and a delayed goal kick becomes a corner kick to the opposition.
The design copies the goalkeeper countdown introduced a year earlier, which is explained in our guide to the eight-second rule. In both cases the lawmakers swapped a card nobody wanted to show for a loss of possession. It is a better idea than the one it replaced.
What the Laws of the Game leave to each competition
The seventeen Laws are deliberately incomplete. In a dozen places the text stops and says, in effect, that competition rules decide.
The number of substitutes. Law 3 sets a maximum of five for official competitions involving top-division first teams and senior international sides, with a cap on the number of stoppages used to make them. Whether a league uses five or three, how many may be named on the bench within the Law's limit, and whether an extra change is allowed in extra time are all decided by the competition.
How a winner is found. Law 10 offers away goals, extra time and a penalty shoot-out. The competition picks. English cups have changed their minds more than once about replays and extra time without the Laws being touched.
Video review. No competition has to use VAR. One that wishes to must meet the requirements of the protocol and obtain approval before it starts. Once in, it must follow the protocol in full, and cannot invent a category of its own. The English version is described in our guide to how VAR works in the Premier League.
Goal-line technology. Law 1 permits it and sets no obligation. The competition pays for it and decides where it is installed, which is why it exists at some English grounds and not at others.
Concussion substitutes. Additional permanent concussion substitutions became a standing competition option in 2024, subject to a protocol printed in the Laws.
Sin bins. Temporary dismissals exist in the Laws only as an option for youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football, and only with the national association's approval. They cannot be used in the professional game.
Other choices sit on the same list: drinks breaks, additional assistant referees and, from 2026-27, body cameras worn by referees.
Then there is everything the Laws never mention. The length of a suspension. Squad sizes. Kick-off times. Points for a win. The offside Law is identical in the Premier League and the Isthmian League, and the consequences of a red card are not.
Modifications for youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football in England
An under-8 match on a Saturday morning does not use a pitch 100 metres long or a goal eight feet high, and it is still football under the Laws of the Game. The book makes room for it at the front, in a section on modifications.
National associations may, for youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football, change six things without asking anyone: the size of the field; the size, weight and material of the ball; the width and height of the goals; the duration of the two equal halves and of extra time; the use of return substitutes, where a player who comes off can go back on; and the use of temporary dismissals for some or all cautions. Nothing else may be altered without the Board's permission.
How the FA uses the freedom
The FA has built a ladder of formats on those six permissions. The current version, phased in under a programme the FA calls FutureFit and in place from the 2026-27 season, moved several age groups down a step from the previous structure.
| Age group | Format |
|---|---|
| Under-7 | 3v3 |
| Under-8 and Under-9 | 5v5 |
| Under-10 and Under-11 | 7v7 |
| Under-12 and Under-13 | 9v9 |
| Under-14 and above | 11v11 |
Pitch and goal sizes shrink with the numbers, the ball goes down from size 5 through 4 to 3, and repeated substitutions are the norm so that every child plays. The FA's regulations for each step, including retreat lines and when offside is first applied, are set out in our guide to FA youth football rules by age.
Two English modifications go further than size. The FA has removed deliberate heading from matches in the youngest age groups, phasing the change in from 2024-25, a measure described in our guide to the heading ban in youth football. And since 2019-20 the FA has required grassroots leagues to use sin bins for dissent, so that a player cautioned for arguing with the referee spends a period off the field in place of a simple yellow card. The mechanics are in our guide to sin bin rules.
Veterans' football and disability football use the same permissions for different reasons. Futsal and beach soccer sit outside this altogether, with laws issued by FIFA.
The pages after Law 17: VAR protocol, glossary and practical guidelines
The Laws stop well short of the back cover. A reader who closes the book at the corner kick misses the sections referees spend most time with.
The VAR protocol. This sets out when a video assistant referee may intervene and how. The principles are restrictive by design. The VAR assists only in the event of a clear and obvious error or a serious missed incident, and until 2026 only in four categories: goal or no goal, penalty or no penalty, direct red cards, and mistaken identity. The 2026-27 edition widened it slightly, to take in a red card that results from a clearly incorrect second caution, a card shown to a player of the wrong team, and, as an option for competitions, a clearly wrong corner-kick award where the check can be done without delaying the restart. The final decision is always the referee's.
The details of each year's changes. Every edition prints the amended clauses with the old text, the new text and an explanation.
The glossary. Three lists: football bodies, football terms and referee terms. This is where the book defines words it uses elsewhere without comment. "Careless", "reckless" and "excessive force" appear here. So do "deliberate", "challenge", "save", "simulation" and "tackle". When a pundit and a referee disagree about a decision, they are quite often using a word in two different senses, and the glossary records which one the Laws intend.
The practical guidelines for match officials. Positioning diagrams, flag signals, body language, how to manage a wall, where an assistant should stand at a penalty. They read as a training manual because that is what they are.
The spirit of the game
The phrase appears in Law 5 and again in the introduction, where the Board asks referees facing a situation the text does not directly cover to consider what football would want or expect. It is defined in the glossary as the main principles and ethos of football as a sport and within a particular match.
It does real work. It is the authority for a referee to manage a trivial infringement with a word, or to refuse to let a team profit from a loophole. It is also the clause that makes complete consistency impossible. The Laws ask for judgement and say so, which is a more honest position than pretending the text can decide every case.
From thirteen laws in 1863 to seventeen in 1938
The first code was agreed at the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, on 8 December 1863, six weeks after the Football Association had been formed in the same room. The version voted through had thirteen laws.
A modern reader would barely recognise the game they describe. There was no crossbar, no referee, no fixed number of players and no penalty. A player could make a fair catch and claim a free kick. Any attacker ahead of the ball was out of play. What the thirteen laws did settle was the argument that had split the meetings: no running with the ball in the hands and no hacking at an opponent's shins. Blackheath, the club that argued hardest for both, withdrew from the Association, and the handling game went its own way as rugby.
- 1863The Football Association agrees thirteen laws in London on 8 December, banning carrying the ball and hacking.
- 1886The four British associations form the International Football Association Board to keep a single code.
- 1891The penalty kick is introduced and a referee takes charge on the field with two linesmen.
- 1925The offside law is changed so that two opponents, not three, keep an attacker onside.
- 1938The Board adopts Stanley Rous's reorganised text, arranged as the seventeen Laws used today.
- 2016A full rewrite shortens and modernises the wording under the same seventeen titles.
The principal redrafts and the changes that altered the structure of the Laws. Many smaller amendments fall between each step.
The decades after 1863 filled the gaps one at a time. Corner kicks arrived in the 1870s. The crossbar replaced tape. The penalty area and goal area took their present rectangular shape in 1902, in 1912 the goalkeeper's right to handle was confined to the penalty area, and the arc on the edge of the box was added in 1937.
By the 1930s the code was a patchwork, with nearly half a century of amendments bolted on since the changes of 1891. Stanley Rous, a former international referee who became secretary of the FA in 1934, set about reorganising it. His text grouped the material logically, gave each Law a title and put them in the order that still stands. The Board adopted it in 1938.
Rous's structure has outlasted every piece of content inside it. The back-pass restriction of 1992 went into Law 12. Then the 2016 rewrite, led by the former Premier League referee David Elleray, cut the text heavily and still left the count at seventeen.
There is no technical reason for the number. Video review could have been Law 18 and was made a protocol. The seventeen are treated as a fixed frame, and everything new has to find a place inside it. More on how the game is run in this country is on our England hub, and wider coverage of the sport is on the football section.