Question Number: 28819

Law 17 - Corner Kick 10/5/2014

RE: REc Under 13

John Trinidad of Castro Valley, CA US asks...

My son kicked a corner kick and a teammate kicked it into the goal. The referee ruled it a goal. Team is heading back to get ready for a kickoff. The opposing coach is a VP of the league and calls the ref over saying it was an offsides. The ref confers with the line ref and then they rule an offside. Is this legal?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi John
A player cannot be offside directly from a corner kick. So if the scorer was the only player to touch the ball from the corner kick then offside is not possible.
Now it can be possible that a touch by an attacker such as a header, deflection from the corner kick to the scoring team mate in an offside position then that will be called offside.

Answer provided by Referee James Sowa

John,

A player can not be offside if they receive a ball directly from a corner kick. If there is any deflection or touch by an attacker, this could lead to a player being offside. It is also possible that on the shot a player was preventing the goalkeeper from making a play on the ball. If this player was in an offside position, the referee would be justified by ruling the player offside. It is also possible that the referee made a mistake. Even at U13, the referees are still learning the intricacies of the game.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi John,
if not illegal, certainly convoluted!

It kind of reeks of a bit of favoritism/elitism because he is a league official/ coach but it might be a coach just trying to get justice for his team. I am not adverse to engaging a coach on a decision if he is respectful and time permits. But it is my decision, if he pointed something out in law that I suddenly clued in on and had overlooked, I might feel foolish, but if it is the correct course of action to reverse a decision, then for fair play, it must be done.

There is NO Offside on a corner kick.
If the team mate kicked the ball into the goal having directly received it from your son's corner kick it could be a righteous goal.
UNLESS
there was another team mate in an offside position who was somehow blocking the line of site of the keeper or interfering with an opponent at the moment the team mate touched/kicked the ball as that is a new touch and offside criteria might apply.
OR
another teammate somehow got a faint touch/deflection on the ball before it reached the team mate who may have been offside at that moment of a soft touch of the ball prior to shooting.

Of course these are assumptions, I have no idea what occurred as to the particulars of offside being judged or possibly overlooked.

It is unusual for a referee to accept a coaches input as a non neutral as a fact of play unless the information awakens an, uh oh, in the referees mind. Possibly the AR had a flag raised thus the coach was upset the referee had not looked over at it? Since no restart had yet occurred a referee is legally entitled to change a decision if he has neutral credible Intel he has erred or overlooked something which perhaps his AR provided.

On any goal the referee MUST look to the AR to see if there was anything wrong in the ARs opinion that might make a good goal, not be so good! The AR does not run up the touchline indicating it was a good goal scored if he has reservations or is convinced it was done unfairly. He stands there at attention flag up waiting to talk to confer with the referee and communicate the details . The referee listens ,then decides on what course of action he feels is correct based on all the facts at his disposal. The AR as a neutral official advises, but the referee decides. It is his decision, his match, his reputation!

Cheers