Question Number: 26716

Law 5 - The Referee 9/4/2012

RE: Rec Under 14

Brad Ashton of Los Angeles, CA USA asks...

Player A is attacking into the penalty area and is tackled from behind sending Player A to the ground. The Referee blows the whistle and points to the mark indicating a pentalty kick. As the players are setting up for the pentalty kick, the AR motions the Referee over for a discussion and tells the referee a offside violation had occurred. AR had never raised his flag prior to motioning the Referee over and probably a minute had gone by as the players were setting up for the PK.

The Referee picked up the ball from the mark and placed it at the spot of the offide violation and awarDed a IFK for the opposing team.

Does the offside violation offset a foul in the penalty area? In other words, if a foul occurs after a offside violation it is ignored?

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

The question is always which offense occurred first. If the offside occurred first, that's what we have to do, assuming the referee accepts as correct the AR's information about an offside having occurred.

In this particular scenario, the referee could decide the offside did not occur, due to the no flag and tardiness of the decision bringing into question the AR's decision. In that case the foul is the first offense and the PK will be given.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

There is a real problem here in that the AR needed to raise his flag. As the referee, I would be sorely pressed to accept the offside even if it did occur. My question to the AR would be: 'Why didn't you raise your flag?'
Awfully hard to sell taking away a PK for an offside offense when no flag was raised.
Of course, had the flag been raised, and the offside occurred first, the absolute correct call is to call off the PK and award the IDFK to the defenders.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi
In Law the correct decision is an IDFK for the offside offence as that happened before the award of the penalty kick. That can happen on a missed flag by the referee where the referee is concentrating so much on the penalty decision that he does not see his assistant's offside flag. So the referee is entitled to change his decision before the next restart which in this case is the penalty kick. Once the kick is taken the referee cannot then change his call.
Now in your scenario there would appear to be some lack of communication between the CR and the AR. Is it likely that the CR missed the flag and he did not make eye contact with his assistant on an important decision? Did the AR move to the penalty position to confirm the call?
The AR may also have been waiting to see what developed on a possible offside before raising the flag. We have all been in that position where we look for the offside flag, don't see one and then assume incorrectly that there is no offside yet the flag is raised a few seconds later when all the conditions of offside are fully met. Had the PIOP not got involved in active play then the offside call would not have been made.
The important part is that the correct call is made. If the player in an offside position becomes involved in active play and then get fouled the correct decision is the IDFK for offside.

Answer provided by Referee Dennis Wickham

There has been a recent change in the interpretation regarding which came first.
It used to be the view that if a player was in offside position when the ball was kicked, the offside infringement was considered to have happened at the moment the ball was originally kicked by a teammate - - not when the player in offside position did something to infringe the offside law. Call the offside, and not the 'intervening' foul.

The current interpretation is that the offside is deemed to happen when the player in offside position does something to infringe the offside law - either by touching the ball or by interfering with a defender's ability to see or play the ball. Thus, the assistant referee is asked to keep the flag down until that happens.

So, the answer to your question is: it depends. If the player in offside position interfered with a defender's ability to see or play the ball, that could happen before the foul occurred. The correct restart would be for the offside infringement. On the other hand, if a defender caught with the hands a ball that was intended to be a pass to a player in offside position, the offside player never got a chance to touch the ball or interfere with a defender. The handling foul should be called.

In your situation, it was possible that the referee and assistant each only had half the necessary information. The AR knew who was in offside position. The AR may not have known if that player interfered with a defender's ability to see or play the ball. By letting the referee know about offside position, the referee may have been able to correctly determine whether there was an offside infringement before the foul. It doesn't look as accurate a decision as if the flag had been raised before the foul, but assistant referees are trained that when in doubt about an offside infringement, keep the flag down.