Question Number: 5093

Law 11 - Offside

RE: junior

daren of , asks...

Is it true that to be offside there must be daylight between the striker and defender or how much of the player needs to be seen before he or she is offside?

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Daren I like to say that if the two players concerned are otherwise even the one that had seconds for dinner would determine offside position, his torso is bigger! That is how to judge offside, given the assistant being properly positioned! ..Remember, when there is the slightest doubt as to offside position, NO FLAG!!!..Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Powell

FIFA have stated that the benefit of doubt should go with the attacker on offside decissions that is too say that if the attacker and second last defender are level or possibly the attacker is in front but the Assistant is not sure then he should not signal him offside. If you look back to the World Cup this was not the case, there were a number of goals dissalowed because the Assistants flagged for offside when the players were not offside but there were no goals given where the Assistant had kept his flag down when in fact the attacker was offside, so FIFAs instruction is not getting through to the Assistants. This is because we as referees admit it is better to give a dodgy offside then a goal from a dodgy offside..To counteract this in England the Head of refereeing for the National list of Assistant Referees gave a guidance that the Assistants should look for daylight before flagging for offside. Hopefully this guidance would help to bring the advantage to the attacker in the close calls. It also got publicly retracted but I think the merit of it was in order with the spirit of what FIFA were trying to do in sofar as they were trying to encourage attacking play.