Question Number: 18426

Law 11 - Offside 2/24/2008

RE: High School

john macinnes of murfreesboro, tn usa asks...

this occured in a high school game. team a was attacking team b's goal. a player from team a was in an offsides position close to team b's goalkeeper. a a team player attempted a pass to the player in the offsides position. the ar immediately raised his flag. the pass deflected off a team b player into the goal. after a brief discussion the ar the ref allowed the offsides call to stand and restarted the game with an indirect kick. was this the correct call, i thought the goal should have been allowed.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

The assistant and referee came to a meeting of their minds and that is that. I was not there to make a guess so we must go with the referee's judgement.

Now, you and I both know John the decision is contingent on what the offside player did from the time if the pass toward him and when play stopped because we both know it is not an offence in itself to be in an offside position. If he just stood there, moved out of the way, hid or any other thing to show the referee he had no intention of doing one of the three things prohibited by him being in an offside position the goal should stand. Simple as that.

If he did something to influence how play ran, because he neither interfered with play nor gained advantage, the the assistant is correct in suggesting the referee give offside.

Again, I wasn't there to see this one unfold so I can't offer anything other than what I have.

Except the assistant didn't follow established US Soccer procedure for denying a goal. He has two options to deny a goal:

He flags if the person scoring the goal was offside. [Not this time]

He stands at attention if there was foul play by the attacker OR a player other than the one scoring the goal was offside and interfering with play or an opponent. [one of these happened]

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

The AR by raising the flag has indicated what he sees, the referee USUALLY accepts the AR view point because the AR is USUALLY in a better position to judge offside.. If there was a flag raised that says the AR sees it as NOT a good one then a referee must be equally sure to say it IS a good one. There is little doubt at the grassroots there are all kinds of confidence questions the officials have amongst themselves given the skill, age and experience discrepancies.
How well an AR understands offside and how well does a referee understand offside?

If the officials are a team and they trust each other the ARs get the offside nod because that is their main duty. We often designate the quadrant of responsibility for fouls and most referees will support their ARs 99.9% A referee can not focus on offside very well and do justice to the other aspects of the game. We rely on our ARs to be competent. ONLY when we are painfully aware they are not do we adjust the way we approach play!
A referee who ultimately rejects the AR's offside decision for his own decision it is because the referee is responsible for making the final decision, SAW events differently

A goal is a big deal.

Since the INVOLVEMENT is a subjective decision and the POSITIONAL often one of timing and line of sight opinions will differ perhaps on the angle of view or the understanding one actually has of what it is he or she witnesses.

Here there appears to be some uncertainty and quite correctly the referee and AR confer to review the details as to what and how each of them saw the events unfold. The referee decided that the AR point of view is now the same as his. No goal allowed and an INDFK awarded for the offside call . You ask is it correct? As it is a fact concerning play it is undisputable.

I do understand your reason for asking as it states IT IS NOT an offence to be in an offside position. My opinion is, In your opinion the AR was too quick to raise the flag on a player who in your opinion ultimately had no effect on the final outcome of play. Correct?
If you were the referee you see this as a legit goal and wave off the AR. Opinions we each have on each and every event at each and every match are based on what we think we saw as it relates to what we know to be true.

It is a fact that if a pass is headed to an offside positioned attacker had he touched or played that ball it WOULD be an offside call. Since the ball was intercepted by the defender and deflected into the goal we must ask ourselves was that offside attacker interfering with the opponent?

That is the only criteria upon which we could see an offside call based on.

It is not hard to imagine the reason the defender played the ball was to prevent it arriving to the offside attacker who the defender may not have known was inilegiable to play it.

If the pass was not on target of goal but only on target to that offside attacker then by being in a position to receive it the aR must SEE his actions as involving himself. The AR has concluded that was so since his flag was raised even before he deflected goal. I can not dispute that logic and can only offer if an AR was concerned or unsure he could keep the flag down but gets the referee's immediate attention after the goal by not returning to a kick off position to relate the concerns. The referee considers and makes a decision. Here the referee supported the AR and any debate to say it was not has no real credability because we did not see it!
Cheers