BRITISH AMERICAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL RULES AND INTERPRETATIONS 2008 EDITION

Foreword

The rules are revised each year to improve the sport's level of safety and quality of play, and to clarify the meaning and intent of rules where necessary. The principles that govern all rule changes are that they must:

• be safe for the participants;
• be applicable at all levels of the sport;
• be coachable;
• be administerable by the officials;
• maintain a balance between offense and defence;
• be interesting to spectators;
• not have a prohibitive economic impact; and
• not be unduly divergent from the rules adopted by EFAF in Europe and NCAA in the USA.

These rules apply to all contests involving BAFA-affiliated teams and take effect from 1st March 2008 (Exception: leagues whose regular season began before 1st March 2008 will continue to use 2007 rules until the end of their season).

BAFA has established a mechanism for discussing and deciding future changes to this book. Each organisation affiliated to BAFA has a voice on the Rules Committee. You may make suggestions for changes to your organisation's representative(s). Suggestions may be made at any time, but to eligible for consideration for the following year they must be received by 1st October.

Jim Briggs, BAFRA (Editor) on behalf of the BAFA Rules Committee

Those who find it necessary to write to the editor for interpretations of rules or play situations will receive prompt replies if they number their questions and email them to rules@britishamericanfootball.org.

The editor would like to thank the following people who assisted in the production of this edition of the rulebook:

Keith Alldritt Phil Clarke Russell Newton Peter Parsons Paul Sutton

Table of Contents

Rules changes..........................................................4 Points of emphasis.....................................................6 The Football Code.....................................................10 BAFA Disciplinary Code................................................13 Rules and Interpretations.............................................16 Field Diagram.........................................................18 Rule 1 -- The Game, Field, Players and Equipment....................21 Rule 2 -- Definitions...............................................39 Rule 3 -- Periods, Time Factors and Substitutions...................56 Rule 4 -- Ball in Play, Dead Ball, Out of Bounds....................70 Rule 5 -- Series of Downs, Line to Gain.............................74 Rule 6 -- Kicks.....................................................79 Rule 7 -- Snapping and Passing the Ball.............................91 Rule 8 -- Scoring..................................................108 Rule 9 -- Conduct of Players and Others Subject to Rules...........118 Rule 10 -- Penalty Enforcement.....................................135 Rule 11 -- The Officials: Jurisdiction and Duties..................147 Rule 12 -- Instant replay..........................................148 Rule 13 -- Standards for Game Management...........................152 Rule 14 -- Football variants.......................................163 Summary of penalties.................................................173 Officials' Signals...................................................180 Appendix A: Guidelines for Game Officials to Use During a Serious On-Field Player Injury182 BAFRA Terms and Conditions...........................................183 Index of Rules and Interpretations...................................190

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Editor: Jim Briggs, BAFA/BAFRA Rules Committee
rules@britishamericanfootball.org