Question Number: 27841

Law 11 - Offside 10/1/2013

RE: Rec Under 13

Dennis of Redondo Beach, CA USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 27795

In reference to question 27795, I have a question that nobody would call offsides on but I was wondering for trivia purposes. When a offensive player is waiting mostly on their own half of the field with no part of their body forward of the half line but with part directly over the half line and is forward of the second to last defender, would the player be in an offside position? i.e. is the actual line itself part of the offensive half of the field or defensive half. I realize that lines are part of the area that it encloses, but in this case which area?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Dennis
The player needs to have part of his body, that can legally play the ball, over the half way line to be in an offside position. The line itself is part of the player's own half so the player must break the plane of the line to be in an offside position.
See Slide 7 and 12 of the attached presentation
http://www.fifa.com/lotg/football/en/flash/start.html

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

The halfway line is part of EACH half of the field. So, whengoing left to right or right to left, the attacking players must have the parts of their body that can legally play the ball behind the line to stay in an onside position

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

The laws themselves aren't entirely clear on this, but I find that most referees would seem to agree that on the halfway line is fine. The debate around this is generally a semantic discussion around particular wording, so not everybody disagrees.

Personally, I think waiting until some part of their body is over the line is a more 'common sense' approach - as the laws aren't entirely clear either way, a lot of people seem to accept that 'on the line' is fine, and there's no point going against general consensus for an arbitrary definition when we're discussing a matter of inches.

The shading on the pitch in Slide 7 as provided by Ref McHugh would seem to agree with that.