Question Number: 17380

Law 11 - Offside 10/18/2007

RE: Comp. Under 15

philip of Houston, TX USA asks...

This question is a follow up to question 17343

It seems the answers on follow-up 17343 are conflicting with each other.

Which one should it be?

A) bring the restart back to where the player was first observed to be in an offside position.

B) restart from where you deterimined the player to have "involved" themself in play or touched the ball.

Thanks

Answer provided by Referee MrRef

Law 11 is specific. All four answers reflected what Law 11 states. The restart of play is from where the player was in an offside position when his team mate last touched the ball, NOT where he ran to to interfere with play or an opponent or gain advantage.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

I looked at all 4 answers and they all say the same thing: the restart is from the point on the field where the player in offside position was at the moment the ball was played by his teammate.

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Philip, my apologies if my answer introduced confusion. The spot of offside infringement does get confusing and that is why ARs must stay focused. The answer is B - restart from where you determined the player to have gone from OSP to OS. A caveat - each time the onside player with the ball touches the ball, it resets the OSP. There is a space of time between the last touch and the involvement when a player goes from simply being in OSP to OS - sometimes an instant, sometimes several many (long) seconds. If you know where that spot is, the next decision the referee must make, based on what information they have from the AR and their own read, is what is best for the game? And that my friend, is the art of refereeing. Regards.