Question Number: 28283

Law 11 - Offside 3/26/2014

RE: Select Under 18

Will of Corona, California USA asks...

My copy of the LOTG is several years old, so I down loaded the 2013/2014 version of the LOTG. I was surprised that the new version only has one page for law 11 (Offside). The old copy has several pages in the chapter and it describes law 11 extensively. I want to make sure that this rule I'm about to mentioned has not changed.
A defensive player (defender or goalie) accidently kicks the ball to an opponent, who is in an offside position. The call is not an offside because it was not kicked to him by a teammate?

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

1. That is still 'not offside.' Using current terminology, we would state that it is not gaining an advantage because a defender made a 'deliberate play' on the ball (that was not a 'deliberate save'). If he was in an offside position the last time a teammate touched the ball and played the ball after it deflected off the defender, however, that would still be offside (gaining an advantage).

2. Much that you remember in Law 11 has been moved to the FIFA Guidance and Interpretations. If you download the LOTG from the FIFA website, it is contained in the last 70 or so pages. The section is not contained in the law book distributed by USSF.

Law 11 recently went through a major rewrite, particularly in the definitions of 'gaining an advantage' and 'interfering with an opponent. Most of the concepts remain the same.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Will
Offside Law 11 has been one page for a very long time? Since 2007 the Questions and Answers section has been discontinued and replaced with a more detailed ''Additional Instructions and Guidelines for Referees' I believe that older books would have included the smaller Additional Instructions section which included info on offside but it was also at the end of the booklet.
There has been some changes to Law 11 in recent years mainly to better define what is meant by Interfering with an Opponent and also Gaining an Advantage. Fairly straightforward in my opinion.
In the example you question it is not offside as the ball has been played albeit accidentally by a player of the opposing team. That is not offside. Now where the ball to rebound, deflects of an opposing player from a play by a team mate of the player in an offside position then offside is not reset and it should be called when the player in a offside position touches the ball or interferes with an opponent.