Question Number: 23161

Law 11 - Offside 4/22/2010

RE: AYSO Under 13

Stuart Lewis of New York, NY United States asks...

This question is a follow up to question 23144

I think both answers are incorrect applications of the laws. In the FIFA 09-10 LOTG there is a scenario, page 103 which states: A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball, if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an
onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.

From the original description, the first player is clearly about to play the ball, and no other player is nearby until the other player runs onto the ball after all the confusion.

So Linesman was correct in his/her application of the laws.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Referee Lewis
When the IFAB amended Law 11 came into force in July 2005 "interfering with play" required the playing or touching the ball for offside to be called with no exceptions. After operating the Law for a period of 6 weeks IFAB subsequently sent out Circular no 987 which stated and I quote
' The text and wording of Law 11 and its decisions 1 & 2 were not changed, nor was their spirit. However, the working group agreed on the following text as "advice on the application of Law 11, IFAB Decision 2":
"A player in an offside position may be penalised before playing or touching the ball if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.
If an opponent becomes involved in the play and if, in the opinion of the referee, there is potential for physical contact, the player in the offside position shall be penalised for interfering with an opponent."
So in essence offside is only called when the player in an offside position interferes with play or interferes with an opponent or gains an advatage by being in an offside position. In the situation where the referee believes that the OSP player is the only attacking player going to play the ball or there is a danger of a collision the offside can be called without the requirement of a touch. This is an exception not the norm.
Clearly in this case the OSP player has not touched the ball nor has he interfered with an opponent and that must not be called as offside. In addition there was an attacker Player B in an onside position with an opportunity of playing the ball as he must have been reasonably well located to move in to play the ball and that is fine under the Laws.
It can only be offside if Player A interfered with play (touched the ball) or with an opponent. He did neither and he is entitled to stop his involvement in the play if he believes he will called offside. It is then up to the defenders and any other onside player to get on with play.
Where the scenario in p103 applies is where the game to move on a number of seconds the OSP would touch the ball and that exception eliminates the need to wait for the inevitable touch perhaps many yards from the position of the offside. I believe now that this exception is being used as an excuse to call offside early in many situations that do not merit it.
Please also remember that the 2005 definition of interfering with play eliminated the concept of 'involved in active play' from Law 11 so 'about to play the ball' is no longer offside unless the player is a lone OSP player who will play the ball and there is no team mate with an opportubity to play the ball.
Here is a good example of the correct application of Law 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgFhR5iyTk

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

First, the fact that someone from an onside position WAS able to run toward and play the ball indicates that the referee erred in thinking that no other teammate could.

Indeed, this kind of error was so prevalent that USSF issued an interpretation in 2009 binding on referees in the US (AYSO is a part of USSF) that the referee MUST wait for someone to actually touch the ball before raising the flag for interfering with play because waiting is only way to know for sure that no one will be able to play the ball from an onside position. It caused some consternation when released, but repeated examples in professional play of the flag going up too soon has convinced me of the wisdom of the interpretation. (Other nations may vary.)

Because one can infringe the offside law by interfering with an opponent's ability to see and play the ball, if the flag goes up before an attacker touches the ball, it should be because the player in offside position interfered with an opponent.