Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly manage the mechanics of a corner kick.

Lesson Explanation

Law 17 governs the corner kick, awarded to the attacking team when the whole ball, last touched by a defending player, crosses the goal line (excluding a scored goal) without a goal being scored — the genuinely direct mirror-image counterpart to the goal kick from the previous lesson, distinguished only by which team last touched the ball.

The ball is placed within the corner arc nearest to where it left the field, and opponents must remain at least 9.15m from the corner arc until the ball is in play — the identical distance requirement already established for free kicks (Part 3, Lesson 1) and penalty kicks (Part 3, Lesson 2), a genuinely consistent standard applied across nearly every restart in the Laws.

The corner flagpost must not be removed to take the kick, and the ball must be stationary before it is kicked. A goal may be scored directly from a corner kick — a genuinely important contrast to the indirect free kick and goal kick’s “own goal becomes a corner kick” pattern, since the corner kick itself carries no such restriction on scoring directly, including against the kicking team’s own goal if the ball is deflected in (an own goal, recorded as such, with no special restart rule required beyond a normal kick-off).

A genuinely important connection to Part 2, Lesson 4’s cautionable-offence list: failing to retreat the required 9.15m at a corner kick is treated identically to failing to do so at a free kick — a caution for the offending player if the referee judges the encroachment to have clearly interfered with a quickly taken restart, followed by a retake.

Practice Questions