Free kick
action in several codes of football
A free kick is an action used in several codes of football to restart play with the kicking of a ball into the field of play.
Association football
In association football, the free kick is a method of restarting the game following an offence by the opposing side.
For more serious offences, such as handball or serious foul play, a direct free kick is awarded, from which a goal may be scored directly against the opposing side. (If such an offence is committed in a team's own penalty area, a penalty kick is awarded instead).
For less serious offences, such as offside, an indirect free kick is awarded, from which the ball must touch another player before a goal is scored.
Gridiron football
In American football, after a safety is scored, the ball is put into play by a free kick. The team that was scored upon must kick the ball from their own 20-yard line and can punt, drop kick, or place kick the ball. In professional play, a kicking tee cannot be used – however, a tee can be used in high school or college football. Once the ball has been kicked, it can be caught and advanced by any member of the receiving team, and it can be recovered by the kicking team if the ball travels at least 10 yards and bounces at least once or a player of the receiving team touches the ball.
In Canadian football, after scoring a safety touch, the scoring team has the option of taking control of the ball and beginning play from their own 35-yard line, kicking the ball off from their 35-yard line, or accepting a kickoff from the 25-yard line of the team that conceded the score.
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This entry incorporates text from “Free kick” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.