Football Throw-In Rules: Feet, Distance and Direct Goals

When a throw-in is awarded

A throw-in goes to the opponents of the player who last touched the ball when the whole ball crosses the whole touchline, on the ground or in the air.

That repeats an important principle from the football laws: a line belongs to the area it bounds. A ball resting above or touching the vertical plane of the line is still in play. The restart begins only when the entire ball has passed beyond it.

The throw is taken from the point where the ball left, not wherever the thrower finds space. Referees allow practical tolerance, but moving a materially better distance downfield is not part of the right to restart.

The legal throwing action

At the moment of delivery, the thrower must face the field, have part of each foot on the touchline or on the ground outside it, and throw with both hands from behind and over the head.

Both feet may be outside the field. They may touch the line. What is not allowed is a foot fully inside the field or lifted from the ground at delivery.

Law 15 requires a throw, not a drop. A somersault throw can be legal because the acrobatics happen before delivery; the position and action at the release still have to satisfy the same rule.

Opponents, distance and delay

Opponents must remain at least two metres from the point on the touchline. A player who unfairly distracts or impedes the thrower, including by standing too close, is cautioned for unsporting behaviour.

The current law also tackles time-wasting. When the referee identifies unfair delay, they whistle and begin a visible five-second countdown. If the ball is not in play when the count expires, the throw-in is awarded to the opposing team. A caution is reserved for excessive delay after possession of the restart has already changed.

That makes the sanction immediate: the delaying team loses the very restart it was trying to slow.

Direct goals and the second touch

A goal cannot be scored directly from a throw-in. If the ball enters the opponents’ goal untouched, the restart is a goal kick. If it enters the thrower’s own goal untouched, the restart is a corner.

Once the ball enters the field it is live, but the thrower cannot touch it again until another player does. A second touch produces an indirect free kick, or a direct free kick if that second touch is a handball offence.

A throw deliberately directed at an opponent can be legal if it is a genuine attempt to play the ball again and is not careless, reckless or excessively forceful.

The offside and goalkeeper exceptions

A player cannot be penalised for offside when receiving the ball directly from a throw-in. Once another teammate touches it, normal offside law resumes.

A goalkeeper cannot handle a throw-in taken directly by a teammate. Doing so inside the goalkeeper’s penalty area produces an indirect free kick but no automatic card.

These are mirror-image exceptions: the throw-in temporarily switches off one restriction and activates another.

What happens after a faulty throw

If the ball enters the field after an illegal action—one foot raised, one-handed delivery, or release from the wrong technique—the opponents receive the throw-in.

If the ball never enters the field, the same team retakes it. That distinction follows the status of the ball: a defective restart that never puts the ball in play has not yet transferred possession through play.

The apparently simple throw-in therefore contains several separate tests: why it was awarded, where it is taken, the body position at release, opponent distance, whether the ball entered, and what happened next. Applying them in that order resolves most disputes.