Question Number: 25274

Law 11 - Offside 8/2/2011

RE: High School

Todd of Fort Wayne, IN USA asks...

Off sides:
What defines your half of the field in reference to the center line?
To be on side; do you have to be completely in the defensive side, can a portion of your body be in the middle of the line or can a portion touch the line and extend into the other half? (i.e. foot placement on a throw in )

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

If any part of your body that you can use to play the ball - head, feet, legs, backside, but not hands and arms - is across the half line, then the player is in the opponent's half for determining offside position. This is the same test regarding offside position vs an opponent - any playing body part past the opponent's playing body part.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Todd
For a player to be in an offside psoition he must be in the attacking half of the field of play. The player must be over the half way line to be deemed to be in the attacking half. However only parts of the body that can play the ball are relevant. For instance an extended arm over the half way line would not be considered.
On foot placement when part of the foot is over the halfway line that part it is deemed to be in the other half.
However at speed and in a game situation an AR is going to find the width of a line difficult to judge. My advice is to only penalise obvious offside positioning rather than part of the foot over the line

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The lines are part of the areas that they border. This means that the halfway line is part of BOTH halves.

The technical answer is that when the head, the body, or the feet are on the halfway line, players are both inside their half and their opponent's half. But, any infringement is trifling and should be ignored.

Unless the assistant referee is 100 percent sure that a player is in the opposing half, all doubts are resolved in favor of not offside. For most referees, that should require that the head, body or feet are obviously past the halfway line.