Question Number: 25271

Law 11 - Offside 7/30/2011

RE: Intermediate Under 12

Phil of Tarzana, CA United States asks...

This question is a follow up to question 25260

Just a comment. I believe that Referee Joe McHugh, who usually is right on with his answers, mispoke.

He said 'A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he IS, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play.'

I believe that he meant to say:
'A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he thereafter becomes, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play before the time of judgement resets.'

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Ref McHugh did not misspeak; he quoted directly from Law 11. We can't help it if the words IFAB used are imprecise.

I remember a pastor who said, 'The Bible doesn't always mean what it says, but it does mean what it means.' The same can apply to the Laws of the Game.

Your wording is what IFAB meant, but not what they said.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Phil
On offside questions I always try to use Law 11 wording. This was a direct quote from the LotG. As you know active play means either interfering with play or an opponent or gaining an advantage by being in that position which is the 'thereafter' part and if those are not relevant with another phase of play begining with either the ball going out of play, it is touched by a player in an onside position or the opponents gain control of the ball then that is the 'reset' part.
In all answers it would be diffcult to cover all the bases and many times it is just about answering the specific question. In this case the specific question of a pass from an opponent which can never be offside.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

No Phil, Joe,as usual, quotes ver batim the Laws Of The Game. Here is the entire quote taken from page 31 LOTG 2010/2011:

Offence
A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball
touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee,
involved in active play by:
? interfering with play or
? interfering with an opponent or
? gaining an advantage by being in that position.

There has been no change in the 2011-2012 edition but it is on page 33.

This single amazingly poorly worded statement has caused more problems than any other part of the LOTG. Of course it does NOT mean what is says. When taken as written, it would almost be impossible for a player to ever be guilty of an offside offense due to what the first statement in Law 11 says:

It is not an offence in itself to be in an offside position.

As you know, an offside offence has 2 parts:
1. position
2. involvement

At the moment the ball is touched or played by a teammate only position can be judged. As you correctly point out, we wait and see what the offside positioned player actually does until offside resets.

Perhaps an even more concise statement would be:

A player in an offside position at the moment a teammate touches or plays the ball, may not become actively involved in play until offside resets.

Then they could list how a player may become actively involved in play, and then list how and when offside resets.

But inexplicably, IFAB has consistently decided to NOT say what it means when considering an offside offence. You should note that on this site, when any of us answer offside questions we go out of our way to directly quote the LOTG which is what Joe did here