Question Number: 18037

Law 11 - Offside 12/1/2007

RE: Adult

Melvin Hagerman of Colorado Springs, Colorado U.S.A. asks...

Regarding offside from a throw-in:

I was watching the Copa Sudamerica (South American version of UEFA Cup) final last night (America [MEX{ v. Arsenal {ARG]), when this happened in the second half:

On Arsenal's defensive half of the field, an America player threw the ball in from touch to another America player nearer the Arsenal end-line. The referee blows play dead and awards the ball to Arsenal; the TV cameras show the assistant referee indicating offside. Replays show that the America player was in an offside position at the time of the throw-in; the commentator was left baffled by the call.
(So were the America players and coach!)

How can a player be called offside direct from a throw-in, and what is the rule for that?

Answer provided by Referee Ben Mueller

Only thing that I could think of would be if the ball touched another attacker on the way to the offside positioned player. If the ball did not touch any other attacker besides thrower, then it was not the proper call.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

We are agreed that an offside DIRECTLY from a throw in is impossible in law to substantiate. So either the call was wrong or something we are not aware of occurred? As my colleague Ref Muller speculates it is a best guess senario for an offside to BE the call the ball arrived via a touch by a team mate onroute.
In one case I can recall an offside flag was raised when a defender kicked out a ball to prevent the pass from getting through to an offside positioned opponent whio was in the opinion of the aR interferring with play. An opponent grabbed the ball and threw it back in so quickly that the referee only then noticed the raised flag was for offside not ball out of play.
As the new information made the throw in restart illegal the indfk out was given!
Cheers

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 18054