Question Number: 23370

Law 5 - The Referee 5/25/2010

RE: Competitive Under 19

John of boston, ma USA asks...

A foul occurred about 40 yds from goal against a player dribbling the ball. The player maintained possession so advantage was allowed. A second later the player made a thru pass to another attacker who was just offside. The whistle was blown for offside and the defending team awarded the IFK. The question is can this be considered a case of the advantage not being realized and the foul against the attacker called? The attacker made the play, but possibly due to the disruption of the foul, the timing was off and the other player went offside, whereas the attacker may have been able to release the ball quicker if not for the foul.

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

First, remember that advantage is more than just maintaining possession. The player has to be able to do something with that possession that is better than what the team would gain by having a free kick. The referee determines this by balancing his estimation of what the player can do with the possession versus what the opponents could do if play was stopped and they could defend against the free kick. Sometimes maintaining possession and momentum is good for the team; other times the free kick would be better.

In evaluating whether the offside call caused advantage not to be realized, the referee will have to determine what else the fouled player could have done with the ball except pass it offside. Was that the only good opportunity for the team, or did the player pick one bad option of several that he had to choose from? If the player could have a lane open to dribble, or had the choice of passing to other teammates who were not offside, then it was the player's poor choice of options that lead to the offside. But if the referee invoked advantage thinking a quick pass to this player (who the ref probably didn't realize was offside) was the advantage to be obtained, then advantage would not be realized. Play should be called back for the foul in that situation.

Another factor in determining that advantage was not realized is if the fouled player made a poorer play on the ball than he would have been able to had he not been fouled. This generally happens if the player is stumbling a bit or was slowed down by the foul so he didn't get as good a touch on the ball as he would have otherwise had. Your supposition about the player having the extra half-second to move to an offside position could qualify as one of these factors, but the referee probably wouldn't know if that was the case or not. A quick conference with the AR would be in order to determine if the player was in an offside position at the time of the foul or not - that is, if the player had not been fouled and passed to this player sooner, would it still be offside? If the AR estimated that the player would not have been offside had the pass gone sooner, then the foul did affect play and we should go back to the foul, not the offside. The question there becomes whether the AR saw the foul and the timing.

A very interesting situation, which depends on split-second decision making and communication between the ref and AR. Thanks for the question.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The referee must decide whether the 'advantage' was realized. If the referee allowed play to continue because she saw the potential for a pass to a teammate (where the referee would not have allowed an advantage if she understood that the teammate was in an offside position), the referee may revoke the advantage and call the foul. The referee has two to three seconds to decide that advantage was not realized.

When the attacker has several options, and makes a poor one (pass to the player in offside position rather than to the one(s) who were onside), however, the referee may decide that the advantage was realized. The laws are not intended to compensate for the mistakes of the players.

Dennis

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Referee John
Advantage is always difficult to implement 100% for referees. In this case the player was fouled and the referee then believed that it was an advantage to allow play to continue. The player retained possession of the ball and one assumes he was in a good attacking position. He then chose a poor option by passing the ball to a team mate in an offside position. One can argue that the advantage was realised perhaps by the atttacker being allowed to 'return' to the position he was in before the foul. The key here is the time taken and indeed if there was an advantage in the 1st place. You are indeed correct that the foul disrupted the timing and if it all happened within 2/3 seconds the referee could call the original foul. Advantage however is not used to make up for player's mistakes through taking poor option or executing poor passes.