Revision date 2017-02-16
The petanque penalty system ................................................................................................... 2
The penalty system is an unwritten set of rules for umpires ..................................................................................... 2
Infractions, penalties, cards ............................................................................................................................................ 2
The five kinds of penalties .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Penalties are given to individual players. ..................................................................................................................... 3
Penalty cards ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Counting infractions ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Team infractions and team penalties ............................................................................................................................. 6
Article 35 and the panda's thumb .................................................................................................................................. 7
How long does a yellow card last? ................................................................................................................................ 9
Disqualifying a boule..................................................................................................................................................... 10
Excluding a player ......................................................................................................................................................... 10
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The petanque penalty system
The penalty system is an unwritten set of rules for umpires
By "the petanque penalty system" I mean the set of rules that umpires use when counting infractions of the rules
and awarding penalties.1 These rules are an oral tradition. They are not written down anywhere, although
pieces of the system can be found in Article 35 of the FIPJP rules of petanque.
The fact that the penalty system is an oral tradition rather than a written specification has a number of
important consequences. There is an identifiable main thread of tradition, but—
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
There is no official or canonical text for these rules.
There is no author or ultimate authority for these rules.
The rules are not formally defined. Therefore…
The rules of the system are vague.
Different umpires may interpret the oral tradition differently.
Different national federations may interpret the oral tradition differently.
Different competitions may specify different interpretations of the oral tradition.
It is also important to remember that umpires have a lot of flexibility when it comes to imposing penalties.
As you read this description of the penalty system, keep all of these things in mind In particular, remember
that, because of all of these factors, this description of the penalty system is only a rough indicator of how an
umpire might behave. There is no way to predict with certainty what a particular umpire will do in a particular
situation.
Note that there is a separate penalty system for bad behavior. This is a formal, written system developed by the
FIPJP for use in FIPJP-sanctioned competitions. It is documented in Article 39 of the FIPJP rules.
Infractions, penalties, cards
There are three components of the petanque penalty system—



infractions (also called "offenses", "infractions of the rules" or "rule violations" )
penalties
colored penalty cards (also called "signal cards")
The basic idea of the penalty system is that an umpire gives a penalty to a player when the player breaks a rule.
When the umpire gives a penalty, he shows a penalty card.
1
I've also seen the system referred to as "the card system".
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The five kinds of penalties
There are five kinds of penalties that an umpire may award. They are specified in Article 35 of the FIPJP rules.2
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
a warning (yellow signal card)
disqualification of a boule (orange signal card)
ejection of a player from the game (red signal card)
disqualification of a team
disqualification of both teams
As you can see, the penalties are listed in order of increasing severity.
Umpires are allowed a lot of latitude in the awarding of warnings and penalties, but the rules specifically note
that the penalties specified in Article 35 should be applied in the following cases. 3 When—
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
a player's feet are not entirely inside the circle (Article 6)
a player steps out of the circle too quickly (Article 6)
a player fills more than one hole on the terrain, or "sweeps" the terrain with a foot (Article10)
a player fails to remove a trace of mud or some kind of deposit from his boule (Article16)
a player throws his boule as a test (Article18)
a team uses more than one minute for the throw (Article21)
a player tries to measure with his feet (Article26)
a player leaves the playing area without permission (Article32)
Penalties are given to individual players.
The text of the rules makes it clear that penalties 1, 2, and 3 are individual penalties. That is: they are penalties
given to individual players.
Article 35 – Penalties
For non-observation of the rules of the game the players incur the following penalties:
1) A warning, which is indicated officially by the showing by the umpire of a yellow card to the player at fault. …
2) Disqualification of the boule played or to be played, which is indicated officially by the showing by the umpire of an
orange card to the player at fault.
3) Exclusion of the player at fault for the game, which is indicated officially by the showing by the umpire of a red card
to the player at fault.
The traditional practice is for there to be a progression in the severity of the penalties. If an umpire sees a
player engaging in inappropriate behavior, and it is the player's first offense, the umpire will give him a warning.
After that, the umpire will impose increasingly severe penalties for repeated infractions— a second infraction
gets a boule disqualified; a third infraction gets a player ejected from the game.
Note that umpires traditionally have a lot of flexibility in the imposition of penalties. In the case of a serious
violation, for instance, an umpire might skip the imposition of a warning and immediately impose a more
severe penalty.
2
Before the 2016 revision there were six penalties. After the 2016 revision of the rules, there are five.
3
Thanks to Valery Krapil, in Moscow, for compiling this list.
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Penalty cards
Colored penalty cards (sometimes called "signal cards") were invented in 1966 during the FIFA (soccer/football)
World Cup. A quarter-final game was being played between an English-speaking team and a Spanish-speaking
team, with a German-speaking referee. During the game the referee gave two English-speaking players
warnings and expelled a Spanish-speaking player. The problem was that, because of language differences,
many of the players and many of the spectators didn’t understand what he was doing.
British referee Ken Aston was acting as head referee for the tournament, and after the game he began wondering
if there might be a way for a referee to make his decisions clear regardless of language. Thinking about this
problem as he was driving home, Aston was stopped by a traffic light. In a flash of inspiration he realized that
language issues could be bypassed by using the colors of traffic lights. "As I drove down Kensington High Street,
the traffic light turned red. I thought, ‘Yellow, take it easy; red, stop, you’re off’."
Colored cards (yellow for a warning, red for an expulsion) were introduced during the 1970 FIFA World Cup in
Mexico. After that, they were quickly adopted by other sports. Other colors were added, and the meanings of
the colors were adapted to each sport. Petanque added an orange card. 4
Around 2011, national petanque federations (notably Australia and New Zealand) started using colored penalty
cards and the FIPJP started using them in the world championships. In 2014, a meeting of international umpires
voted to include them in the FIPJP rules. In 2016, they finally made it into the FIPJP rules.
Penalty cards are a way of indicating to the spectators (and to the players themselves) that a penalty has been
given. The color of the card indicates the severity of the penalty. When an umpire shows a penalty card, he
usually points (with a hand holding the penalty card) at the player to whom the penalty is being given. Note
that a penalty card does NOT indicate the reason for the penalty— it does not indicate the rule that the player
broke.
In petanque, penalty cards come in three colors. Their meanings are described in Article 35.



YELLOW indicates a warning
ORANGE indicates disqualification of a boule (or boules)
RED indicates expulsion of a player (or players) for the remainder of a game. It may also indicate
disqualification of one or both teams.
4
The Wikipedia entry on penalty cards is a good source of information about the uses and meanings of colored penalty cards in a variety of
ports. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_card.
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Players sometimes use the color of the penalty card as shorthand for the penalty, as in "He was given a yellow
card" rather than "He was given a warning." This shorthand is acceptable in casual talk, but it is NOT
acceptable for use in a formal standards document which requires precise and correct use of language.
Unfortunately, the 2016 version of the FIPJP rules shows that the FIPJP umpires have not yet grasped this fact.
Counting infractions
If you want to be able to impose increasingly severe penalties for repeated infractions, you need to have a
system or method for counting repeated infractions. There are several possible ways to count infractions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
By player
By player and rule
By team
By team and rule
The traditional way is to count infractions by player and rule. The first infraction of rule R by player P will earn
the player a warning. A second infraction of the same rule by the same player will earn the player a disqualified
boule. A third infraction of the same rule by the same player will get the player ejected from the game.
Here is a list of infraction counts from an imaginary game involving players Smith and Jones. This is the kind of
list that an umpire might keep. As you can see, at this point in the game Smith has broken two different rules
and Jones has broken one rule. The players received a warning for each of those infractions, so by now the
umpire has issued 3 warnings and signaled 3 times using a yellow card.
OFFENDER (player)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Infraction
Count
1
Smith
Foot on circle
1
2
Smith
Stepping out of the circle
1
3
Jones
Foot on circle
1
Smith now breaks the "foot on the circle" rule a second time. This second infraction makes his infraction count
for the "foot on the circle" rule increase from 1 to 2. Following the rule that "a second infraction of the same rule
by the same player will earn the player a disqualified boule" the umpire disqualifies one of Smith's boules, and
displays an orange card.
OFFENDER (player)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Infraction
Count
1
Smith
Foot on circle
2
Smith
Stepping out of the circle
1
3
Jones
Foot on circle
1
12
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Team infractions and team penalties
Let me begin with a couple of definitions.


By a team infraction I mean an infraction in which the offender is not a single player but the team as a unit.
By a team penalty I mean a penalty that is awarded not to a single player, but to the team as a unit.
For some rules it seems like the responsibility for respecting (or violating) the rule should be considered a team
responsibility. For such a rule, an infraction of the rule should be considered to be a team infraction that should
be punished with a team penalty. Consider, for example, the 1-minute rule for throwing a boule. In actual play,
violations of the 1-minute rule often occur because several of the team's members are discussing strategy among
themselves. When this happens, it is not possible to identify any single player as THE player responsible for
the time violation. It seems more reasonable to hold the team as a unit responsible for the time violation.
Obviously, the way to count team infractions is by team and rule. Let's look at an example. Consider a game
between two teams, the Terrapins and the Wildcats.
The Terrapins break the 1-minute rule. The infraction count looks like this. Because this is the Terrapins' first
infraction of this rule, the team is given a warning. The umpire shows a yellow card and points at the Terrapins'
team captain.
1
OFFENDER (team)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Terrapins
1-minute rule (boule)
Infraction
Count
1
Next, their opponents, the Wildcats, break the 1-minute rule. The infraction count looks like this. Because this is
the Wildcats' first infraction of this rule, the team is given a warning. The umpire shows a yellow card and
points at the Wildcats' team captain.
OFFENDER (team)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Infraction
Count
1
Terrapins
1-minute rule (boule)
1
2
Wildcats
1-minute rule (boule)
1
Next the Terrapins break the 1-minute rule again. The infraction count looks like this. Because this is the
Terrapins' second infraction of this rule, one of the team's boules is disqualified. The umpire shows an orange
card and points at the Terrapins' team captain.
OFFENDER (team)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
1
Terrapins
1-minute rule (boule)
12
2
Wildcats
1-minute rule (boule)
1
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Infraction
Count
Next the Terrapins break the 1-minute rule again! The infraction count looks like this. Because this is the
Terrapins' third infraction of this rule, one of the team's players is ejected from the game. The umpire shows a
red card and points at the Terrapins' team captain. Or, perhaps, depending on the circumstances, the umpire
shows a red card and points at the ejected player.
OFFENDER (team)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Infraction
Count
1
Terrapins
1-minute rule (boule)
123
2
Wildcats
1-minute rule (boule)
1
As you can see, team infractions aren't very different from individual infractions. The only real difference, you
might say, is that the "individual" is actually a team. So it is easy to keep counts for both kinds of infractions in
one list.
OFFENDER
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Infraction
Count
1
Smith
Foot on circle
2
Smith
Stepping out of the circle
1
3
Jones
Foot on circle
1
4
Terrapins
1-minute rule (boule)
123
5
Wildcats
1-minute rule (boule)
1
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Article 35 and the panda's thumb
Stephen Jay Gould, in his wonderful essay "The Panda's Thumb", gave us a vivid illustration of the fact that
evolution develops new structures, with new functions, by modifying older structures that performed other
functions. (The panda's thumb, as Gould pointed out, isn't a thumb at all; it is a modified wrist bone.) We can
see the same process—modifying older structures to create new ones— at work in the 2016 version of Article 35.
As I noted earlier: in actual play, violations of the 1-minute rule often occur because several of the team's
members are discussing strategy among themselves. When this happens, it seems reasonable to hold the team
as a whole, not any particular player, responsible for the time violation. The FIPJP Umpires Committee realized
this. In the 2016 revision of the rules, they modified the discussion of warnings in Article 35 by adding two new
sentences. In these two sentences we can see the FIPJP umpires working hard, trying to modify a system of
individual penalties so that it will support something new— a team penalty: specifically, a team warning. Here
is how Mike Pegg summarized those two sentences.
The yellow card for exceeding the time limit will be for the team, not just the individual player. So if the team has
already had a yellow card for exceeding the time limit, THE TEAM will be penalised by disqualification of the boule
played or to be played. Time keeping is the responsibility of the team!
With that in mind, let's look at the text of the two new sentences.
Article 35 – Penalties
For non-observation of the rules of the game the players incur the following penalties:
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1) A warning, which is indicated officially by the showing by the umpire of a yellow card to the player at fault.
However, a yellow card for exceeding the time limit is imposed on all the players of the offending
team. If one of these players has already been given a yellow card, he will be penalized by
disqualification of a boule during the mene in progress or for the following mene if he has no more
boules to play.
What we see in these two sentences is an attempt to create something that walks and talks like a team warning,
even though it is (in actual fact) a collection of individual warnings. Note that the text of Article 35 speaks only
of individual warnings. Following an infraction of the 1-minute rule, "a yellow card … is imposed on all the players
of the offending team"; not "on the offending team". (Under intense questioning on "Ask the Umpire" Mike almost
acknowledged this when he wrote "[When] the umpire has given a warning (yellow card) to the team, it applies to each
and every member of the team!")
The second of the two new sentences presents major interpretation difficulties.
However, a yellow card for exceeding the time limit is imposed on all the players of the offending team.
If one of these players has already been given a yellow card, he will be penalized by disqualification
of a boule during the mene in progress or for the following mene if he has no more boules to play.
On "Ask the Umpire", Mike and various posters (including Gary Jones, an FPUSA national umpire) went 'round
and 'round, trying to figure out how to interpret that second sentence. The reason that they had such
difficulties is that the sentence is trying to describe a team penalty using only the conceptual vocabulary of
individual penalties. Doing that (or at least, doing it the way the sentence tries to do it) is impossible. The
result is that it is impossible to extract a sensible interpretation from the sentence as it is written.
It is possible, however, to rewrite the sentence in a way that makes sense.
If one of these players has already been given a yellow card for exceeding the time limit, he his team will be penalized
by disqualification of a boule during the mene in progress or for the following mene if he his team has no more boules
to play.
In this revised version, note that—
1.
Adding the phrase "for exceeding the time limit" makes explicit something that the authors of the sentence
did not make explicit because they probably assumed that it was obvious. Adding the phrase means that
we can now interpret the sentence in terms of the traditional practice of counting infractions by player and
rule. Most importantly, it removes the silly implication that a team could have a boule disqualified because
of their very first infraction of the 1-minute rule. (This would happen if one of the team's players had
received an earlier warning for an unrelated infraction of the rules.)
2.
Replacing "he" with "his team" changes the penalty from a penalty on an individual player to a penalty on
the team as a unit. This does away with the question of how to decide which individual player will have a
boule disqualified after a second infraction of the 1-minute rule, when ALL of the team members have
previously received a yellow card for the same infraction. The penalty will be awarded to the team as a
whole, not to an individual player. As Mike Pegg said "The moment that one minute has passed, the umpire will
step forward, present an orange card, and inform the team that their next boule has been disqualified. That means that
instead of having, say, 4 boules to play, they now only have 3."
The bottom line is that the only way that it is possible to talk sensibly about team warnings is by using the
conceptual vocabulary of team infractions and team penalties that I described earlier. Mike Pegg thinks of a
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team as being a collection of players, so he sees no difference between a single team penalty and a collection of
individual penalties. But other than that, his description of team responsibility is basically correct.
In any event, it makes no difference whether you see things the way Mike does, or you see them in the way I
described earlier. It makes no difference, because the things that you actually do—the way in which you count
infractions and the way in which you impose penalties— are exactly the same, no matter which way you think
about them.
How long does a yellow card last?
Once a player has received a yellow card for a first infraction of a rule, a second infraction of the same rule will
usually be punished by an orange card and the disqualification of a boule. Naturally, players want to know how
long that yellow card will remain an ugly blot on their record.
But— the question "How long does a yellow card last?" is fundamentally mistaken. It is not yellow cards or
orange cards or red cards or penalties that are on players' records. It is their infractions.
Remember the section on "Counting infractions" where we explained that the traditional way to count
infractions is by player and rule. During an umpired competition, the umpire will keep a list of player
infractions. It will look like this list (from our earlier discussion of counting infractions).
OFFENDER (player)
INFRACTION (the rule that was broken)
Count
1
Smith
1-minute rule
1
2
Smith
Stepping out of circle
1
3
Jones
Foot on circle
1
4
Smith
1-minute rule
2
This is the list that follows a player during a competition. This is where the umpire keeps count of the number
of infractions that the player has against each rule. It is that number of infractions that determines whether the
player's next penalty will be a disqualified boule (orange card) or expulsion from a game (red card).
So the question that players should ask is "How long does the list of infractions last?" How long is the list kept,
and when does the umpire throw away his old list and start a new, clean, empty one?
The traditional answer is: the umpire keeps the list for one game. At the beginning of the game the umpire
starts a new, empty list. At the end of the game he discards the list.
However, when asked "How long does a yellow card last?" on "Ask the Umpire", Mike Pegg gave this answer.
A warning (yellow card) would normally stay with the player for the duration of the competition or stage of the
competition. At the European Championships we have 3 stages - Swiss, Poules, KO. If a player is given a warning
during one of the stages it would be removed when he starts the next.
If it was for only a game, the umpire would always be giving a warning to the player, perhaps for the same
infringement... players would simply ignore the penalty.
What Mike is saying, I think, is that the answer to the question is competition-dependent: it can vary from
competition to competition. For the EuroCup competition, Mike says, the practice is for an umpire to start a
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new, empty list of infractions at the beginning of each stage of the competition, and to keep that list for the
duration of that stage of the competition.
Disqualifying a boule
Penalty #2, signaled by an orange card, is "disqualification of the boule played or to be played". What does it
mean to "disqualify a boule"?
Depending on the context, "disqualifying a boule" can mean one of two quite different things. The key to
recognizing the two contexts lies in the expression "disqualification of the boule played or to be played."
The first context is one where we want to disqualify a boule that has already been played. Suppose, for instance,
that a player has already received one warning for a foot fault— for standing on the circle while throwing. Now,
the umpire is watching him closely. Again, the player stands on the circle while throwing his boule. The umpire
shows an orange card and tells the player that the boule that he has just thrown is disqualified because of his
repeated foot fault. In that context, we can point to a specific boule and say “THAT is the boule to be
disqualified.” That specific boule is declared dead and removed from the terrain.
The second context is one where we want to disqualify a boule that has not yet been played. Suppose, for
instance, that a team has already received one warning for violating the 1-minute rule. Now they are standing
around and discussing strategy. Their discussion takes more than one minute. The umpire approaches the team
and informs them that one of the team’s boules is now disqualified because of the team’s second infraction of the
1-minute rule. But… which boule should be disqualified? Suppose that the team has 4 unplayed boules. How
does the umpire pick out which boule he is going to point to and say “THAT is the boule to be disqualified”?
The answer is that he doesn't. In this situation, "disqualifying a boule" doesn't mean picking out a particular
boule for disqualification. It means reducing the number of boules that the penalized team (or player) is
allowed to throw in the future. As Mike Pegg said during an exchange on "Ask the Umpire"—
If the team has 4 boules and are then advised that 1 boule is disqualified, they then have 3 boules.
They may have 4 unplayed boules in hand, but since one of those boules has been disqualified, they are now
allowed to throw only three boules. Which boules they choose to throw is up to them. If the penalized team has
no more boules to throw, the number of boules that they can throw in the next mene is reduced. As Article 35
says—
If one of these players has already been given a yellow card, he will be penalized by disqualification of a boule during
the mene in progress or for the following mene if he has no more boules to play.
Excluding a player
After disqualifying a boule, the next level of penalty is the exclusion of a player from the rest of the game. The
procedures for excluding a player are similar to the procedures for disqualifying a boule.
On the one hand, the umpire may walk up to a specific player and say, "YOU are excluded from the rest of the
game." On the other hand, the umpire may walk up to the captain of a triples team and say, "For the rest of the
game, starting with the next mene, your team is allowed to play with only two players."
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