Question Number: 26672

Law 5 - The Referee 8/23/2012

RE: Competitive Adult

Harris of Somewhere, Someplace Canada asks...

During my assessment game, I came across a particular scenario.

A player crossed the ball forward to a teammate in an offside position. This player then tried to reach the ball landing ahead of him but instead lightly tapped it forward accidentally since he couldn't get control of it. The goalkeeper then snatched up the rolling ball which wasn't too fast. At this point, my assistant referee, raised his flag to indicate an offside offence. At this point, I waved him down to continue play since the defending team had clear control of the ball and as a side note, a better opportunity to play with the goalkeeper in possession of the ball while in play.

My AR later insisted that I should have blown the whistle and I was wondering what you thought about this situation. What is the appropriate decision to be taken by the referee?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Harris
The flag by the AR was correct and the player was offside having met all the conditions.
However you the referee decided that it was more advantageous to allow play to continue by playing advantage and that should have been signalled along with waving down the AR flag if the AR had not done so after the advantage signal.
As regards the AR's viewpoint I know that until recently some associations only allowed advantage on Law 12 offences. USSF recently announced a change to its advice on advantage and it has now followed the rest of the world by allowing advantage to be played on other law infringments including offside. If your AR's training advice was that advantage could not be played on offside then his thinking was valid.
I like the phrase ''Assistant are there to assist not to insist'' so ultimately it was your call.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

The referee may wave down a flag and allow the advantage in this situation. Publicly acknowledging that this is a good flag, but play will continue because the ball is in the keeper's hands is, IMO, helpful, to support the AR's correct decision and to explain to the defense why play is continuing.

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

See Question: 26698