Henry's free kick against Chelsea has brought up some questions on what should be the rule of law for quick free kicks.

Should the ref' jog about 5 yards away to signal one ?
Should they wait for the opposition to set up a wall?
Should they continue as normal?

I don't see no problem with what henry did, the ref told eidur that he was taking it early, you can clearly see eidur telling other players what was going to happen, then the rest is of course history!!

the chelsea players seems to have wires crossed somewhere, as cech was said to have said that "eidur was told the ref would blow the whistle" and eidur has said "the ref told one of our players he will blow the whistle" so you have to ask yourself who the ref actually told, as there is conflicting stories!

The ref moved back one maybe two yards from henry, eidur knew the situation, and everyone know henry likes to do things as quickly as possible, so the people to blame are cech for not being ready, and maybe eidur for not standing over ball!

The Ref surely has to at LEAST back away from the free-kick site!.

Half the Chelsea team couldn't even see Henry because the Ref was virtually cuddling him :suspect:

I'm happy to leave it has it is.

The option is always there and the Chelsea keeper shouldn't have been stood on the far post trying to organise a wall. It's not the referees job to indicate when the free kick is to be taken.

If the referee had started forcing the defenders 10 yards back then I could understand but then they would have to wait for his whistle before taking the free kick.

The attacking team always have the option to take a quick free kick and they utilised it in this case.

I reckon its about right as it is.

I think the rule of thumb that referees use is that the defending team should not be able to delay the taking of a free kick. So if the ref is ready and the free kick taker is ready, then it is allowed to be taken.