Question Number: 23441

Law 11 - Offside 6/8/2010

RE: Other

Jamie Laning of Huntsville, Ontario Canada asks...

This question is a follow up to question 23424

The law says:

...penalised if,...involved in active play by:...gaining an advantage by being in that position.

In the interpretations/guidelines at the back of the this year's (09/10) LOTG, page 103, it says:

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.

As much as it is ok to be in an offside position, it seems to me that if you are better positioned to play when the defense gains control, then you have gained an advantage.

Standing offside versus chasing the ball while offside do not strike me as the same thing either.

Should this player not have been called for offside from the start?

Love your site and work!

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Gaining an advantage has a rather narrow definition, which I'm sure you saw if you were looking at the IGR. It only applies to deflections off of defensive players, or some part of the goal. In the scenario in #23424, the keeper actually kicked the ball which deflected off the attacker.

That's different, of course. We can't call the attacker in an offside position until he gets involved. Here the involvement was interfering with an opponent - the keeper, although depending on the exact circumstances and level of play, it could have been construed as a keeper error and the goal counted.

At any time before the keeper kicked the ball, the attacker could have pulled up, turned away or stopped, and if we had raised the flag too early, we would have interfered with the game and punished someone for being in an offside position - which is not an offense.

It's a question of judgment at the time, based on the speed, the skill level, and so many other factors. So, I guess the answer to your question is NO, the attacker should not have been called for offside from the start. At what point does it become an offense and do we flag? It just depends. We have to do the best we can, and if we are in doubt at all, the flag stays down.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Referee Laning
What you describe was the way Law 11 was many years ago. If a forward was standing in an offside position close to play and he became involved in active play by running towards the ball the flag went up and the IDFK was awarded for the reason you cite. This increased the number of offside in a game and the game became a stop / start affair plus the opportunities to score by those players in an onside position were thwarted because of this.
IFAB has removed that and the current Law 11 allows for a player to stand in an offside position all game if he/she so wishes and indeed to run towards the ball from an offside position. If the PIOP touches the ball last touched/played by a team mate or deflected off a goalpost/bar/ opponent from a team mate the offside is called. The referee/AR has to make a determination on any 'interfering with an opponent' element and if the defence has gained control of the ball and it has got on with play then offside consideration is now over and it now switches to the team with the ball.
What is stated in p103 relates to the situation where the PIOP will probably in all likelihood touch the ball. Rather than wait for that to happen the flag can be raised for offside. However it MUST NOT be used for situations where there is a doubt of who will touch the ball or possible interfering with an opponent situations and the AR must WAIT & SEE what will happen.
Interfering with an opponent is a judgment call and certainly if you look at Diagrams 8 & 9 page 105/6 of the current Laws of the Game you will see that they are pretty similar except that in 9 the Player A is much closer to Player B and has prevented the playing of the ball or distracted his opponent. In both scenarios the PIOP is running towards an opponent and the ball with one penalised for offside while the other is not.
Whether we agree with that or not is irrelevant. That is what IFAB has decreed in Law 11 and it is up to officials to implement that.