Back-Pass Rule in Football: What a Goalkeeper Can Handle

Palermo, June 1990. The Republic of Ireland and Egypt drew 0-0 in a World Cup group match that became shorthand for everything wrong with the tournament. Defenders rolled the ball back to the goalkeeper, the goalkeeper picked it up, bounced it, rolled it out, received it back and picked it up again. Two years later the lawmakers banned the move.

The back pass rule in football is this: a goalkeeper may not handle the ball inside his own penalty area after it has been deliberately kicked to him by a team-mate, or after receiving it directly from a team-mate's throw-in. If he does, the opposing team gets an indirect free kick from the place where he handled it. The goalkeeper can still play the ball with his feet, and can pick up a back-pass made with the head, chest or knee. The International Football Association Board introduced the rule in 1992 and it took effect in English league football at the start of the 1992-93 season, the Premier League's first.

The back-pass rule in one line, and where the free kick goes

The rule lives in Law 12 of the Laws of the Game, in the section on goalkeeper offences. It is short enough to quote nearly in full: an indirect free kick is awarded if a goalkeeper, inside their penalty area, touches the ball with the hand or arm after it has been deliberately kicked to the goalkeeper by a team-mate, or after receiving it directly from a throw-in taken by a team-mate. The current text adds one exception: the offence is not committed if the goalkeeper has clearly kicked, or tried to kick, the ball to release it into play before handling it.

Three things follow from that sentence.

It is a goalkeeper offence

The offender is the goalkeeper, not the defender who passed. A centre-back who rolls the ball back to his goalkeeper has done nothing wrong; the offence is committed only if the goalkeeper picks it up. That matters for the restart and for discipline, as later sections explain.

It applies only in the goalkeeper's own penalty area

A goalkeeper outside his area may not handle the ball at all, back-pass or not. Inside it, he may handle anything except the passes the rule names. The penalty area line is part of the area, so a goalkeeper standing on it with the ball over it is inside.

The restart is indirect

The opponents receive an indirect free kick from where the goalkeeper's hand touched the ball. If that was inside the goal area, the free kick is moved to the goal-area line at the nearest point, which means the kick is never taken closer than 5.5 metres from goal. The opposition must touch the ball twice to score, and defenders are entitled to line up on their own goal line between the posts.

Situation	May the goalkeeper handle it?
Team-mate passes it back with the inside of the foot	No
Team-mate heads it back	Yes
Team-mate chests it back	Yes
Team-mate's clearance is deflected off an opponent	Yes
Team-mate miskicks a clearance that loops to the goalkeeper	Yes
Team-mate takes a throw-in straight to the goalkeeper	No
Team-mate passes it from a free kick or goal kick	No
Opponent's throw-in goes to the goalkeeper	Yes

What "deliberately kicked" means: foot, intention and the miskick

The word that does all the work is "deliberately". A goalkeeper may pick up a ball that a team-mate kicked by accident. He may not pick up one that a team-mate kicked on purpose.

Kicked means the foot

For the purposes of this rule a kick is a touch with the foot. The knee and thigh are not part of it, which is why a ball cushioned back off a team-mate's thigh can be picked up. Contact between the knee and the foot, a pass off the shin, is rare and left to the referee's judgement.

Intention, not direction

Despite the name, a back-pass does not have to travel backwards. The rule says "kicked to the goalkeeper", and referees read that as a question about the team-mate's intention to play the ball to his goalkeeper, not about which way the ball travelled. A full-back near the corner flag who plays the ball sideways along the edge of the area for his goalkeeper to collect has made a back-pass. So has a defender who knocks it forward and to the side when his goalkeeper is standing level with him. What matters is that the ball was deliberately played and that the goalkeeper was the intended recipient.

Miskicks, blocks and deflections

The reverse case is the one that confuses spectators. A defender who swings at a cross to clear it and slices the ball high into the air, where it drops into his goalkeeper's arms, has not deliberately kicked it to the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper may catch it. A defender who blocks a shot with his foot and diverts it towards his own goalkeeper has not deliberately kicked it to anyone. Catch. A ball that comes off a defender's foot after a ricochet from an opponent is outside the rule entirely, because an opponent's touch resets it.

Referees have to decide intention from the shape of the action. A controlled side-foot pass is deliberate. A desperate lunge is not. Between those sits a grey zone: a defender under pressure who toe-pokes the ball away and sees it roll to his goalkeeper. The offence needs a deliberate kick, so genuine doubt about the defender's intention works in the goalkeeper's favour, and sensible goalkeepers avoid finding out by kicking it anyway.

Where the deliberate kick is not a pass

There is one case where the "intention to pass" framing does not quite fit. A deliberate kick by a team-mate that was not meant for the goalkeeper, a clearance struck firmly but badly that runs through to him, is still a deliberate kick, but the goalkeeper was not the intended recipient. The safer reading, given that the Law says "to the goalkeeper", is that the rule targets passes to him; a misdirected clearance is closer to a miskick than to a pass. It is one of the places where the rule relies on judgement and where reasonable referees disagree.

Head, chest, knee and thigh: the legal ways back

The restriction is narrow on purpose. It applies to the foot alone. Any other legal part of the body can be used to play the ball to the goalkeeper, and he can pick it up.

So a centre-back running towards his own goal can head a long ball back over his shoulder into his goalkeeper's hands. A defender facing his own goal can cushion a dropping ball on his chest and let it fall for the goalkeeper to gather. A thigh, a knee, a hip: all fine. Defenders were doing this long before 1992 and nothing in the rule was meant to stop it.

• 1992Deliberate kick to the goalkeeper banned
• 1997Team-mate's throw-in added
• 2019Goal kick may be received in the area

The year each change to the goalkeeper's position in the Laws took effect. 1992 and 1997 restricted handling; 2019 changed the goal kick so that the ball could be played to a team-mate inside the area.

The reason for the asymmetry

The Board wanted to stop a particular pattern of play: a team in front knocking the ball back to its goalkeeper with the foot, under no pressure, so that he could pick it up and kill time. A header back to the goalkeeper is rarely that. It is usually a defender under pressure from a long ball, with the goalkeeper the safest outlet. Penalising it would have punished defending without curing the time-wasting.

The arms and hands are of course not legal ways to play the ball to anyone. A defender who handles the ball back to his goalkeeper commits handball, a direct free kick, and inside the area a penalty.

The 1997 extension: why the goalkeeper cannot pick up a team-mate's throw

Teams soon found the gap. A throw-in is neither a kick nor a header. A defending team on the touchline near its own area could throw the ball to its goalkeeper, he could pick it up, and the time-wasting pattern of 1990 resumed in a slightly different form.

The Board closed the gap in 1997. From that year a goalkeeper may not handle the ball inside his penalty area if he receives it directly from a throw-in taken by a team-mate. The word "directly" is important. If the throw is taken to a defender, who heads it to the goalkeeper, the goalkeeper may pick it up, because the last touch was a header. If the throw reaches the goalkeeper after brushing an opponent, he may pick it up, because the opponent's touch frees him.

Throw-ins in practice

The rule does not stop a team throwing to its goalkeeper; it stops him catching the throw. Goalkeepers at every level now take a team-mate's throw on the foot and play it on, and in the modern game a short throw to the goalkeeper is a recognised way to restart an attack from deep. The rest of the throw-in rules, including the conditions of a correct throw and the countdown introduced for 2026-27, are set out in our guide to football throw-in rules.

The same logic applies to free kicks and goal kicks. A team-mate who passes the ball to his goalkeeper from a free kick has deliberately kicked it to him, and the goalkeeper may not pick it up. This catches out a few junior goalkeepers every season, who receive a short goal kick from a defender and gather it.

The banned trick: flicking the ball up to head it back

Once defenders understood that a headed back-pass was legal, some of them looked for a way to manufacture one. The obvious method is to flick the ball up with the foot and then head it, or knee it, back to the goalkeeper. The ball has technically been played back with the head. The spirit of the rule has been comprehensively evaded.

The Laws deal with it as misconduct. A player who initiates a deliberate trick for the ball to be passed to the goalkeeper with the head, chest, knee or any other part of the body, to get round the back-pass rule, commits an offence. The opponents receive an indirect free kick and the player who started the trick is cautioned for unsporting behaviour.

The offence is complete without the goalkeeper

The current wording makes the point explicitly: the offence is committed "whether or not the goalkeeper touches the ball with the hands". The trick itself is the offence. A defender who flicks the ball up and heads it back has committed it the moment the header is made, even if the goalkeeper decides to kick it away instead of catching it.

The same rule for restarts

The trick applies to restarts too; the Law names free kicks and goal kicks. A defender who chips a free kick up for a team-mate to head back to the goalkeeper has initiated a deliberate trick. (Flicking it up to himself would break a second rule as well, because the taker of a free kick may not touch the ball again before another player has.) And if the goalkeeper is the player who sets it up, perhaps by asking a team-mate to flick a free kick into the air for him, the goalkeeper is the one penalised.

1. 1Deliberate kickA team-mate plays the ball to the goalkeeper with the foot, on purpose.
2. 2HandlingThe goalkeeper touches the ball with a hand or arm inside his own penalty area.
3. 3Whistle and armThe referee stops play and raises an arm to signal an indirect free kick.
4. 4PlacementThe kick is taken where the ball was handled, or on the goal-area line if that was inside the goal area.
5. 5Wall on the lineDefenders may stand on the goal line between the posts. The attacking team needs two touches to score.

The sequence under Laws 12 and 13 for a goalkeeper handling a deliberate kick by a team-mate inside the penalty area. A caution is added only where the pass was a deliberate trick.

What the goalkeeper can still do with a back-pass

The rule is restrictive, not prohibitive. A goalkeeper receiving a deliberate kick from a team-mate may:

• play it with his feet, controlling, dribbling or passing as an outfield player would;
• head it or chest it back out, if it arrives at that height;
• pick it up after an opponent has touched it, because the opponent's touch breaks the connection to the team-mate's kick;
• pick it up after another team-mate has played it with the head or chest, because the last touch was not a kick.

He cannot pick it up after merely controlling it with his own foot. The rule is about the team-mate's last touch, and a goalkeeper's trap does not reset it. A goalkeeper who traps a back-pass, looks up, sees nobody to pass to and then picks it up has committed the offence as surely as if he had caught it on the full. The one exception in the current text is the goalkeeper who has clearly kicked, or tried to kick, the ball to release it into play: if he swings at the clearance and scuffs or misses it, he may then handle.

Under pressure

The difficult moment is a back-pass under pressure from a forward. The goalkeeper must play the ball with his feet, and the forward knows it. This is the moment the rule was designed to create. Before 1992 a back-pass was a safe outlet; after it, a poor back-pass became one of the commonest sources of goalkeeping errors. There is no exception for danger. A goalkeeper facing a striker one-on-one after a weak back-pass may not pick it up to save a goal; if he does, the indirect free kick follows, and the question whether any card follows is dealt with below.

Where a good back-pass goes

Coaches in England teach the back-pass as a skill in its own right, with conventions that exist only because of the rule. The first is to play the ball wide of the goal, towards the side of the six-yard box, never along the line of the posts. If the goalkeeper miscontrols a ball that is travelling towards the corner flag, the worst outcome is a corner. If he miscontrols one that is travelling towards the goal, the worst outcome is an own goal, and English football has a long reel of exactly that.

The second is pace. A back-pass hit too softly invites the forward to nip in; one hit too hard bounces off a goalkeeper's shin. Defenders aim for a firm ball along the ground, to the goalkeeper's stronger foot, with enough weight that he can take one touch away from the pressing forward. The third is communication. A goalkeeper shouts "keeper" or "away" to tell a defender whether he wants the ball at all, and a defender who passes back without that call is gambling.

None of this was taught before 1992 because none of it was needed. A goalkeeper who could pick the ball up did not care where it arrived.

Outside the area

Outside his area, the goalkeeper is an outfield player for handling purposes. He may not handle any ball at all, and doing so is a handball offence, a direct free kick, with a red card if it denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. The back-pass rule has nothing to say there. Our guide to the DOGSO rule in football covers the sending-off for that offence.

The free kick inside the area: the goal line, the wall and the oddest set piece

Picture the restart. A goalkeeper has picked up a back-pass four metres from his goal, inside the six-yard box. The referee moves the ball to the goal-area line, the nearest point, five and a half metres out. Every outfield player of the defending team piles onto the goal line, filling the space between the posts. Attackers crowd in front of them. Everyone is closer to the ball than they would be at any other free kick.

The defending team's position on the line is allowed because Law 13 makes an exception to the 9.15-metre distance for opponents standing on their own goal line between the posts. Without it, defenders could not stand anywhere between the ball and the goal.

How it is defended

The defenders charge the moment the ball is in play, which is when it is kicked and clearly moves. The attackers' plan is to touch the ball short and shoot instantly, before the wall arrives; the defenders' plan is to arrive first. With ten bodies closing down a striker from five metres, the shot usually hits someone. The goalkeeper, often unsighted, stands on the line or slightly in front of it and waits for a ball he can barely see.

Why it is rare

The set piece was briefly common in the first months of the rule, when goalkeepers and defenders were still learning, and has been unusual ever since. Professional goalkeepers rarely commit the offence now; when one does, usually from an error or a lapse of concentration, the free kick tends to produce a scramble rather than a goal. The general mechanics of indirect free kicks, including those awarded for other offences, are in our guide to indirect free kick rules.

No card for the handling: a technical offence, with a few exceptions

The Laws are clear. If a goalkeeper handles the ball inside his penalty area when not permitted to do so, an indirect free kick is awarded, but there is no disciplinary sanction.

This surprises people who think of handling as a cardable offence. The reason is that the goalkeeper's handling inside his own area is not handball in the Law's sense at all. A goalkeeper has the right to handle in his area, and the back-pass rule restricts that right; breaking the restriction is a technical breach, like a foul throw or a second touch at a restart. A goalkeeper who picks up a back-pass to stop an attacker running onto it is not cautioned, and one who picks it up to prevent a certain goal is not sent off. The indirect free kick is the whole punishment.

When a card does follow

There are a small number of situations where a card is shown:

Situation	Sanction
Goalkeeper handles a back-pass inside the area	Indirect free kick only
A player initiates a trick to get round the rule	Indirect free kick and a caution for the player who started it
Goalkeeper handles a back-pass outside the area	Direct free kick, with a card if it stops a promising attack or denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity
Goalkeeper takes a restart and handles the ball again before anyone touches it	Indirect free kick, and a card if it stops a promising attack or denies a goal-scoring opportunity
Goalkeeper holds the ball in his hands for more than eight seconds	Corner kick to the opponents, under the rule in force since 2025-26

The fourth row is the only one where a goalkeeper inside his area can be cautioned or sent off for a handling offence. A goalkeeper who takes a free kick inside his area and then picks the ball up before anyone else touches it has played it twice after a restart. The Laws make that a cardable matter where it stops a promising attack or denies a goal-scoring opportunity, because a second touch at a restart is not the same thing as a handling restriction.

The back-pass rule in English mini-soccer, small-sided and five-a-side football

The back-pass rule belongs to the Laws of the Game, so it applies wherever those Laws apply. In England that includes FA youth football from the formats with goalkeepers upward, though the FA's format rules adapt the restart to pitches much smaller than a full one.

FA youth formats

In the FA's small-sided youth formats, the back-pass restriction applies in principle: a goalkeeper may not pick up a ball deliberately kicked back to him. On a small pitch with a small penalty area, an indirect free kick taken a few metres from goal would be close to unplayable, which is why the FA's small-sided rules, not Law 13, set where that restart is taken in each format. The structure of the formats themselves, from 3v3 for the youngest age group up to eleven-a-side, is explained in our guide to FA youth football rules. The exact wording for each format is set out in the FA's rules and in each league's competition rules, and it is worth checking there rather than assuming the eleven-a-side text applies.

Futsal

Futsal has its own Laws, published by FIFA, and they treat the goalkeeper differently. Its goalkeeper restrictions include a four-second limit on controlling the ball in his own half, and they are written specifically for a game played on a hard court with rolling substitutions. A futsal player in England plays under that code, not under Law 12 of the eleven-a-side game.

Commercial five-a-side

The leagues at commercial five-a-side centres across England write their own house rules. Many have no goalkeeper handling restrictions as such; instead they bar outfield players from the goalkeeper's area, limit the height of the ball, or both. A back-pass may be completely legal in one centre and penalised in another. The FA's Laws do not govern these leagues, and the rule is whatever the operator prints on the board.

Why it was written: the 1990 World Cup and Euro 92

The 1990 World Cup in Italy produced 115 goals in 52 matches, an average of about 2.21 per game, the lowest at any World Cup. It is remembered for defensive football, for time-wasting and for a final between West Germany and Argentina settled by a late penalty. Many factors contributed: tactics, the heat, the importance of not losing a group match. One factor the Board could do something about was the goalkeeper's freedom to pick up any ball his team-mates gave him.

Average goals per match at each tournament. 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994 had 52 matches each and 1998 had 64. Other changes also came in after 1990, including three points for a win at the 1994 tournament, so the rise is not due to the back-pass law alone.

Show the numbers

Goals per game at the World Cup, 1982 to 1998

Item	Goals per game
1982	2.81
1986	2.54
1990	2.21
1994	2.71
1998	2.67

The Board's decision

The Board approved the change in 1992, to take effect after that summer's European Championship. Euro 92 in Sweden was therefore the last major tournament played under the old rule. Denmark, who had been invited to fill Yugoslavia's place at short notice, won it, beating Germany 2-0 in the final in Gothenburg, and their use of back-passes to Peter Schmeichel to slow the game in the closing stages is often cited as the old rule's last flourish.

The change was not universally welcomed. Goalkeepers and defenders complained that it was unsafe, coaches that it penalised teams for playing the ball back to keep possession. The Board's view was that keeping possession was fine but the goalkeeper's hands were not to be part of it.

English football in 1992-93: a new league and a new law in the same season

The Premier League kicked off on 15 August 1992, and its first season was also the first English league season played under the back-pass rule. The coincidence has led to the two being confused ever since, but they were unrelated decisions: one taken by the First Division clubs and the FA about money and television, the other by the Board about the Laws. How the new competition differed from the old First Division is set out in our guide to the Premier League against the old First Division.

Goalkeepers who had never needed to kick

The immediate effect was on goalkeepers. Many professional goalkeepers in England in 1992 had spent their careers barely using their feet except for goal kicks and clearances from the hands. A team-mate's back-pass had always been something to pick up. Now they had to control it, and often with a forward closing in.

The first months of the season produced errors that are now hard to imagine at that level: goalkeepers miscontrolling simple back-passes, scuffing clearances to opponents and occasionally picking up the ball out of habit and conceding an indirect free kick. Defenders, too, had to learn that the back-pass was no longer a safe default, and teams that had relied on it to see out matches had to find other methods.

How defences relearned the last third of the pitch

Defenders adjusted as much as goalkeepers did. Under the old rule a centre-back being chased towards his own goal had an exit that cost nothing: turn and roll it to the goalkeeper. Without it, he had three choices, each with a cost. He could clear the ball into the stand and concede a throw. He could hit it long and probably concede possession. Or he could pass to a full-back or midfielder, which required that team-mate to have made himself available.

The third option is where the modern game came from, but in 1992-93 most English sides took the first two. Full-backs were coached to stay wider and deeper to offer an angle. Goalkeepers began to position themselves differently when their side had the ball, standing a few metres off their line and to one side, so a defender always knew where an outlet was. And forwards learnt that pressing a centre-back who was running towards his own goal was suddenly worthwhile, because the escape he used to rely on had gone.

The change also altered the end of matches. A side defending a one-goal lead in the last minutes could no longer simply play the ball round its back four and into the goalkeeper's arms. It had to keep the ball in the corners or keep passing it, and both were more tiring and more dangerous than what it had done before.

The long ball

The rule fitted the English game of the time better than it might have fitted others. English football in the early 1990s was still heavily direct, and many goalkeepers met a back-pass by hitting it long. That suited teams built around a target man. The tactical history is told in our guide to route one football.

From the back-pass law to the sweeper-keeper and playing out from the back

Over thirty years, the rule changed what a goalkeeper is for. The 1992 goalkeeper was a shot-stopper whose distribution was a secondary skill. The modern goalkeeper is the first passer in his team's build-up, expected to receive under pressure, play through a press and occasionally step out of his area to sweep behind a high defensive line.

None of that was the Board's aim. The aim was to stop time-wasting. But once goalkeepers had to play with their feet, clubs started recruiting and coaching goalkeepers who could do it well, and once they had goalkeepers who could do it well, coaches built tactics around them.

Three changes that compounded

The back-pass rule was the first. The second was the 2019 change to goal kicks, which allowed the ball to be played to a team-mate inside the penalty area; together they made playing out from the back a standard feature of English football at every level. The third was the higher defensive line, which only works with a goalkeeper willing to cover the space behind it, and which in turn relies on a goalkeeper confident with his feet outside his area.

The modern centre-back is the other half of the story. Teams that play out from the back need defenders who can receive the ball from the goalkeeper and pass it on under pressure, and that profile is explained in our guide to the ball-playing centre-back.

What the rule did not change

The goalkeeper's handling rights in his area are otherwise exactly what they were. He can still catch crosses, smother shots and pick up a ball an opponent has touched. The rule removed one specific privilege and left the rest alone. It is widely regarded as one of the most successful law changes the Board has made: a single sentence, aimed at one pattern of play, that removed that pattern and improved the game in ways nobody had planned. The Board's other changes, and how it makes them, are covered in our guide to what IFAB is, and the rest of our football coverage is on the football hub.