Let’s say that Smith, attacking for the Reds, has the ball in the Blues’ goal/penalty area. The Blues’ defender, Jones, gets fouled by Smith - red card-worthy- in the Blues’ penalty area. Does Jones now get an unobstructed kick towards the Reds’ goal, some hundred meters away?
It would just like a foul on any other part of the field, other than in usual foul-inside-the-box PK. I’m not sure I understand your question, I guess. There’s nothing special about committing a foul on a defending player in that defending player’s penalty area.
There wouldn’t be an unobstructed shot – the opposing team just has to be 10 meters away (or whatever the right distance is).
No, you understood it , and answered as asked. Thank you.
Sure! Someday, I’ll understand the reason for relegation, too. 
Promotion and relegation add considerable excitement.
Small teams can get promoted (see Wrexham Welcome to Wrexham | Disney+) and previously top teams can slide downwards.
It means every match counts and can lead to huge crowds, especially near the end of the season.
This has been discussed ad mortem on these boards, but this particular American soccer fan could get behind pro-rel in MLS. It would take a few years to disentagle and re-shuffle all of the money and contracts and business relationships and what have you. And it would probably take another (spitballing here) 40-50 years before smaller teams got enough support that they could compete in the same league as the Big Boys (by American standards, that is). As I’ve said a thousand times before, the US is about 100 years behind Europe when it comes to developing our soccer culture.
It’s 10 yards. Not sure on the precise metric equivalent (9 metres give or take I guess).
Wait wait wait. They calculate distance in yards, not meters, in soccer?
Without looking up yards-meters, what I usually hear around here (Germany) is that the distance is 9.15 m. The refs have quite a good grasp of the distance, they usually take nine big steps to measure it.
As for the OP: yeah, doesn’t matter where the foul happens (other than to the attacking team in the box), it’s a direct free kick. You can theoretically score a direct goal from it.
Eh, football was invented in England, you know?
Yes, and don’t they use the Metric System there?
Not completely today, and surely not when the sport developed and the rules were established in the 19th century.
The field markings in the official rules are measured in yards. If you don’t need round numbers, of course you can use any system.
Everyday use of length and weight measurements is a complete mishmash here. We freely switch between metric and imperial depending on the context.
As to football, as mentioned above, the main laws were set during the 1800s and (possible citation required!) the metric system would’ve still been seen as either exotic (charitably) or foreign - the French use it, for heaven’s sake - and unreliable etc (more likely).
So the distance an opposition player needs to be away from a free kick/penalty/corner/kick off = 10 yards (hence centre circle is 10 yards in diameter, the ‘D’ on the edge of the area the same)
Penalty area is also known as the 18 yard box.
Penalty spot is 12 yards from the goal.
Goals are 8 feet tall and 8 yards wide.
Dr Paprika put it far more succinctly!
Same here in the States. We use metric for things like medicine (so many milligrams in your pill) or liquor (750 ml bottles of wine), and other applications, and imperial for most of the rest.
If a team cannot compete in the better category they go down to a lesser one, there’s no mystery.
The mystery is in sports without relegation, why do bad teams continue to play in the better category while presumptively better teams cannot play because there are no more places?
Maybe, but there was also less information.
Sorry, my comment was a joke reference to another thread from this OP and a thread I spun off from that. I should have put some links in or something. I’m shocked everyone doesn’t read the same exact threads I do and can get the jokes in my brain!
No worries, I should’ve realized it was a joke and not taken it seriously.