Question Number: 26401

Law 11 - Offside 5/31/2012

RE: Competitive Under 13

Herb of Forest Hill, md US asks...

During the game is the center ref notices an certain offsides and the AR did not signal the flag, does the center make the call.(Provided that the center was in posistion and is 100% certain of the offsides.)

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Herb
Yes the referee should make the offside call if he is 100% certain that it is the correct decision.
It works the other way too in that if the AR makes an incorrect call the CR overrules the flag and allows play continue.
From experience the AR is best placed to make the call and if an experienced officials he will be concentrating fully on offside plus the movement of players giving no reason for the referee to make a call without a flag.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

Regardless of any indication by the assistant referee, the referee has ultimate responsibility that each call is made correctly. The referee should wave down an clearly erroneous offside flag and should call an offside infringement even if the flag stays down.

But, my experience, however, is that I have been incorrect 100 percent of the few times when I called an offside when the flag stayed down. Inevitable, the assistant referee saw a second last defender standing far away from the play. The referee's position rarely makes it possible to accurately judge offside position. When the assistant referee is in the correct position to make a decision that a player is not in an offside position, that usually IS the correct call.

Conversely, the referee often is in the best position to see whether a defender has possessed and controlled the ball, whether the ball has deflected off a teammate of the attacker, or whether another attacker is running from an onside position with a chance to play the ball. My experience is that the referee's judgment to wave down an offside flag in these circumstances usually is the the correct call.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

The role of the AR is really only to provide an opinion to the referee. When he raises the flag, he's offering his opinion that an infringement of Law 11 has occurred. The final decision always rests with the referee.

If the referee is absolutely, 100% certain there was an offside infringement then he should blow the whistle, regardless of what the AR does.

Personally, I could count on one hand the number of times I've done this with neutral assistants, and they were with inexperienced officials. While there have been plenty of times where I've felt sure a player was offside, I've generally trusted my assistants and talking to them after the match has generally revealed that they were correct.

As an AR I've had referees blow for offside on a number of occasions when I've kept my flag down. Only once was the referee right, and it was simply because he was faster on the whistle than I was with the flag.