All these laws that involve people being x yards or y metres away are utterly ludicrous, of course, in a sport that doesn't have the means for measuring such things properly. Everything ends up being guessed at by the ref, which inevitably leads to dispute.
Mind you, I've always found the laws of football ridiculous, since so many of them are either widely ignored, impossible to enforce consistently or simply questions of interpretation.
It is in many ways, a very silly game.