Last updated: August 2026
Key Takeaways
- The Laws of the Game define a short list of official referee signals: advantage, indirect free kick, direct free kick, penalty kick, yellow and red cards, and the VAR «TV signal». Most of the gesturing you see beyond that is local convention.
- One arm straight up means indirect free kick, and the referee holds it there until the kick is taken and the ball touches someone else. If the arm is up, a shot cannot score directly.
- The assistant referee’s flag angle after an offside call tells you where the offence happened: up for the far side, horizontal for the middle, down for the near side.
- Two countdown signals are now part of the Laws — five fingers for a goalkeeper holding the ball, and a five-second count for a delayed throw-in or goal kick.
Most people watching a match can read a red card and nothing else. That is a shame, because the referee is narrating the whole game with their arms, and once you know the vocabulary you stop needing the commentator to tell you what just happened.
There is a catch, though, and it is the reason lists of «soccer referee signals» disagree with each other. The Laws of the Game define only a handful of signals. Everything else — the gestures for tripping, holding, pushing and the rest — comes from national bodies, and what an American high-school referee shows is not always what you will see in a Premier League match.
Here is the whole vocabulary, sorted by what is official and what is convention.
«New referees over-signal. They think every decision needs a gesture, so they invent them, and then nobody knows what they mean. The good ones use five signals and a lot of eye contact.» — Anthony Molina, FOOTBOLNO.COM
The Signals the Laws Actually Define
| Signal | What the referee does | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Advantage | Both arms raised forward to about shoulder height | An offence happened, but play continues because stopping it would punish the fouled team |
| Indirect free kick | One arm straight up above the head, held there | The kick cannot score directly — the ball must touch another player first |
| Direct free kick | One arm out, pointing towards the goal the kicking team is attacking | Free kick that side, and it can be scored directly |
| Penalty kick | Points at the penalty mark | Penalty |
| Caution | Yellow card held above the head | Booking |
| Sending-off | Red card held above the head | Dismissal |
| VAR review | Outlines a rectangle in the air — the «TV signal» | The decision is being reviewed, or has been |
The indirect free kick signal is the one worth learning first, because it changes what you are watching. The arm stays up until the kick is taken and the ball touches another player or goes out of play. If the ball goes straight into the net with the arm still up, there is no goal — it is a goal kick to the other side.
The Countdown Signals
Two signals in current use are counters rather than decisions, and both are written into the Laws.
Goalkeeper holding the ball. A goalkeeper who controls the ball with their hands inside their own penalty area for more than eight seconds concedes a corner kick to the opposing team. The referee decides when control began and visually counts down the last five seconds with a raised hand, dropping a finger each second. When the hand closes, the eight seconds are up.
Delaying a throw-in or a goal kick. If a team is deliberately slowing a restart, the referee blows the whistle, signals for the kick or throw to be taken, and counts down five seconds with a raised hand. If the ball is not in play by zero, the restart goes to the opposition.
Both counts are visible from the stands, which is the point of them — every player, coach and spectator can see exactly how long is left.
Assistant Referee Signals
The assistant referee communicates almost entirely with the flag, and the rules for it are precise: stop running, face the field, make eye contact with the referee, then raise the flag with a deliberate movement. A flag waved while sprinting means nothing.
| Flag position | Decision |
|---|---|
| Raised at 45 degrees, pointing along the touchline | Throw-in, in the direction the flag points |
| Pointed down at the corner arc | Corner kick |
| Pointed horizontally towards the goal area | Goal kick |
| Straight up, then a slight wave | Foul or misconduct the referee did not see |
| Straight up, held still | Offside |
| Held above the head with both hands | Substitution |
There is also a rule about which hand: the assistant raises the flag with the hand that will be used for the next part of the signal. Watch closely and you can often tell which way a throw-in is going before the flag finishes moving.
Reading the Offside Flag
The offside signal comes in two parts, and the second part is the informative one.
First the assistant raises the flag straight up and holds it until the referee blows the whistle. Then the flag comes down to one of three positions to show where across the pitch the offence happened:
- Flag raised at 45 degrees upwards — the offence was on the far side of the field
- Flag horizontal — the middle of the field
- Flag pointed down at 45 degrees — the near side, closest to the assistant
That is the signal that tells the referee where to place the free kick without a conversation. If you want the rule itself rather than the flag, our guide to offside covers what actually makes a player offside.
Signals That Are Convention, Not Law
In the United States you will see referees mime the offence itself: a leg swung forward for tripping, a hand grabbing the opposite wrist for holding, both palms pushed out from the chest for pushing, one hand tapping the opposite forearm for handling. These come from high-school and youth associations, and they are genuinely useful at levels where nobody has a microphone or a stadium screen.
They are not, however, in the Laws of the Game, and you will rarely see them in professional European football. A referee at that level points and moves on, because the broadcast replay does the explaining.
The same applies to a few others worth knowing if you watch youth soccer:
- Both arms out at 45 degrees from the sides — dangerous play
- Hand placed behind the head — unsporting conduct
- Hands crossed above the head — play stopped, referee’s time
- Arm out with an open palm towards a player — wait for the whistle before restarting
None of them are wrong. They are simply local, and knowing the difference stops you arguing about a signal that means one thing in Ohio and nothing in Manchester.
What the Referee Deliberately Does Not Signal
There is no signal for «no foul». A referee who waves play on when nothing happened is not making a decision, they are declining to make one, and good referees keep that gesture small so it is not confused with advantage.
There is also no signal explaining why a card was shown. The card goes up, the number goes in the notebook, and the reasoning stays with the referee — which is why the same yellow can look harsh from one end of the ground and obvious from the other.
For a goal, the international convention is simply to turn, point towards the centre mark and jog back to the halfway line. No arms in the air. The scoreboard does the celebrating.
Common Questions
What does it mean when the referee raises one arm straight up? Indirect free kick. The arm stays up until the kick is taken and the ball touches another player, and a shot that goes straight in while the arm is raised does not count.
How do you tell a direct free kick from an indirect one? The arm. Straight up means indirect; pointed out towards the attacking goal means direct. That is the only visual difference at the moment the kick is awarded.
What is the advantage signal in soccer? Both arms raised forward to shoulder height. It means the referee saw an offence but is letting play continue because the team that was fouled is better off. If the advantage does not come off within a few seconds, the referee can still come back and give the original foul.
Why does the assistant referee hold the flag at different angles for offside? To show where across the pitch the offence happened — up for the far side, horizontal for the middle, down for the near side. It saves the referee having to ask.
What does it mean when the referee holds up five fingers and counts down? Either a goalkeeper has been holding the ball too long — eight seconds is the limit, and the last five are counted visually — or a team is delaying a throw-in or goal kick and has five seconds to restart.
What is the TV signal? The referee outlining a rectangle in the air. It means a VAR review is happening or a decision has been changed after one. It is shown once, immediately before the final decision is announced.
Are referee signals the same everywhere? The core ones are. The gestures that mime the type of foul are national conventions, mostly American, and are not part of the Laws of the Game.
Do the same signals apply in futsal? Many do, but futsal has its own set including accumulated-foul signals and timeouts — the futsal rules guide covers what changes.
Anthony Molina writes about soccer technique, gear and coaching at FOOTBOLNO.
