Question Number: 27463

Law 11 - Offside 5/20/2013

RE: Rec. Under 10

Scott O'Connor of Lovingston, Virginia USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 27411

Reading FIFA rules myself today, it seems despite their attempts along with the International F.A. to make the offside rule clearer their can still be many different interpretations made by different professionals in regards to the rule.

In the 'Active Play' part of FIFA rules it states 'making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee, deceives or distracts an opponent'. I believe in my case this happened but also see it's a judgment call by the ref. What kind of movement or distractions do you think FIFA are referring to.

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Fortunately that is going away in 40 days. It will be changed to challenging an opponent for the ball. Now they haven't defined challenge yet, but that's sure easier to define than deceiving or distracting.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Hi Scott. You refer to a statement by IFAB that has been a bane to all referees for years and will soon be gone!!. I have asked instructors for years to give examples of both deceiving and distracting and the answers, while often amusing, were of little help.
What most of us have concentrated on was the offside positioned player doing something to disadvantage the opponents. Sometimes this is easy,eg the OSP player is in the line of the keeper's sight and the keeper never sees the ball coming or he stands in the path of an opponent making it impossible for the opponent to get to the ball.

Other times it's not so easy and what we watch for is an indication that the keeper or any other opponent simply decides to go mark the OSP player without the OSP player actually doing anything.

Anyway, we all will be happy when the new LOTG come out.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Scott
Most offside can be black and white decisions. Simple one is where the player in an offside position touches the ball. The more complex ones require an opinion and that opinion has to be informed. All we can go on are the diagrams on pages 106 to 112 of the current Laws of the Game. You will note Diagram 8 and 9 which refer to this scenario. Note that is has nothing to do about defending choices but rather what does the player in an offside position do.
For many years I have been of the opinion that most if not all of the changes related to the game at the highest level. In those games such as WC , CL etc elite referees are given an interpretation and it is uniformly implemented. Here is an example of the type of adcvise given to UEFA Refs
'' Referees and assistants should be aware of the following situations which fall within the category of "making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee deceives or distracts an opponent":
'A player in an offside position, by his manner and direction of movement, on or near the path of the ball interferes with an opponent by contributing to /
provoking the opponent's uncontrolled clearance or interception of the ball or
other action).
A player in an offside position and clearly in the goalkeeper's line of vision (between him and the kicker) interferes with the goalkeeper (distraction).''

Once though it starts to disseminate down the levels it gets less uniform with less instruction on interpretation. Referees are then left with the wording only.
One of the reasons cited by IFAB on the change of wording on Law 11 this year is '' The current wording creates many discussions as it gives too much room for interpretation and is not precise enough.''

So if I was a UEFA assistant referee the player in an offside position would have to be either in line with the ball (line of vision) or making the opponent miss or miskick the ball.