Question Number: 19925

Mechanics 9/11/2008

RE: Rec Under 15

Darryl of Yucca Valley, ca usa asks...

Hello, In Our local Youth league, Our referees are having a little difficulty in agreeing over 'When' the AR is to signal the offside.
Some Center's tell their AR's do not raise your flag until the offside player actually touches the ball, others say, as soon as you belive the offside player is involved to raise your flag! What should I instruct our ref group regarding this??

Thank you very much! Referee in YV

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

There are more ways to become involved in play than touching the ball. The offside-positioned player might interfere with an opponent - offside. Or she might be the only player who has a reasonable chance to get to the ball, and is moving toward it - offside.

The only time you absolutely must wait for the ball to be touched is if one player is coming from an onside position and the other from offside, and you can't tell which one will get there first, and the offside-positioned player isn't interfering with an opponent.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

My mantra is,
ARs raise the flag ONLY when 100% convinced the offside INVOLVEMENT has been achieved! When in DOUBT, do NOT wave it about!
A PHYSICAL touch of the ball even if accidental qualifies for interfering with play. Still there is not always a need for a physical touch to be declared involved. While mostly it applies to interfering with an opponent there will be occasions when the offside player is in HOT pursuit of the ball and no one BUT him is in a position to recover it.
We would delay our flag if the ball could possibly go out of play into touch before he reached it
We would delay our flag if there was an onside team mate also in pursuit who could reach it.
We COULD delay our flag if the ball looked likely to be recovered say by the opposing keeper and there was NO possible chance of a collision. (This is often thought to be an application of advantage but I tend to think of it as offside involvement criteria not yet met!)
IF during any of our delays an opponent becomes involved in the pursuit of the ball we must look closely to see if the offside player interferes with the defender's ability to successfully play the ball.
It is not the THOUGHTS of defenders or the choices the defenders make it is ONLY in the definitive action of the offside positional restricted player WHAT DOES HE DO TO AFFECT PLAY?
Cheers

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

See Question: 19944