Based on recommendations from the FIH Rules Committee, the FIH Executive Board has agreed changes to the Rules of Hockey5s. These changes formally take effect from 1 May 2016.
For information, the following Regulations, which vary the Rules of Hockey5s, will be adopted for the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and are recommended for all Continental YOG Qualifiers:
· Rule 1. Field of Play, pitch size of 48 metres x 31.76 metres, with dotted 12 metres lines from each back-line. EHF now confirms the Hockey5s events will be played with this pitch size.
· Rule 5. Match & Result, matches to comprise 2 periods of 10 minutes with 2 minutes interval at half-time – NOTE: Match time for EHF Future Heroes Cups 2016 are as mentioned in the EHF Regulations: 3 periods of 10 minutes.
· Rule 11. Conduct of Play: Umpires, two Umpires will be required for each YOG match.
Changes to the Rules of Hockey5s (with reference to the numbered Rules in the current 2016 edition) are as follows:
· Rule 12. Penalties
o 12.2. Free Hits awarded for offences within and between the quarter-line areas – the Hockey5s Rules indicate 11 metres areas, while based upon the YOG Regulations these will be 12 metres areas. The lines indicating these areas will now be referred to as quarter-lines in the Rules.
o 12.3. Challenges will be awarded for intentional and unintentional offences on the same basis at present, except that this will now be for offences in the defending half, rather than just in the defending areas indicated by the quarter-lines as at present.
· Rule 13. Procedure for Taking Penalties
o 13.3a, Challenge to continue to be taken from the quarter-line, except all other players should now be positioned behind the centre-line – this enables these other players to re-enter play more quickly.
o 13.3g, at a Challenge the ball should travel 4 metres before a shot at goal can be attempted. The starting position of the defending goalkeeper (as per Challenges/Shoot-outs in other formats) will now be from the goal-line (rather than 4 metres away from the ball), which is seen as enabling a much fairer contest between the attacker and defending goalkeeper.
NB. The opportunity will also be taken to tidy up and/or provide additional guidance to clarify existing Rules. To draw attention to all changes, even to minor points of clarification, a line will appear in the margin of any text which has been changed when the full set of Rules is published to the FIH website. This will be done as soon as possible.
EHF Office/ April 21st 2016