Question Number: 28931

Law 11 - Offside 11/1/2014

RE: competitive Adult

Karlene of Toronto, Canada asks...

If an attacker is in an offside position, no doubt about it. The attacker is 2 feet behind the defender; play is outside the goal box.
His teammate sends in a cross, the defender goes to head the ball and in jumping up, his hand hits the ball... the ball drops nicely at the attacker's feet.
Do you call the attacker offside or do you allow play to continue?
The law says if you receive the ball from your teammate..if the there was no handle ball on the defender's part the attacker would have been offside.
But since the defender committed a foul do you give the attacker advantage and allow play to continue?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Karlene
Thank you for your question which has been debated at length by the panel. Law 11 is the most amended law in the game. In recent years there has a number of iterations in interpretation which tries to limit the way offside is called. The most recent interpretation suggests that in a deliberate play by a defender offside is reset. What we do know is that if the ball is deliberately handled and prevented from getting to the attacker who has done nothing to interfere with an opponent then the handling will be called. Now where the ball makes it way to the attacker I contend that advantage cannot be played here. Deliberate handling is not a legal deliberate play that resets the offside and it has to be considered a rebound / deflection as it could not be consider as *deliberately plays the ball* which is a reset under the current interpretation. So the only possible decision is a direct free kick from where the deliberate handling occurred. The assumption is made that there is no challenge for the ball by the player in an offside position.
If there is no deliberate handling then offside will be called when the player in an offside position touches the ball.
Now on a forum and in an esoteric debate an opinion that can challenge those assumptions can be reached. In lower levels of the game I believe that in the majority of cases the deliberate handling will be called. That is the most likely call for a referee faced with such a scenario based on the simple principle of intuition based on deep experience of not playing advantage on a player in an offside position. It is probably what is expected in the game as well probably with a raised AR flag..
Now here is an interesting situation that happened in the German Bundesliga
http://www.garcia-aranda.com/eng/?p=3818
It is noted that the referee (well mainly his assistant) got the decision wrong here. The opinion given on the situation was that the correct decision was a penalty kick and a red card for denying an obvious goal.
Could advantage have been played by deciding that the deliberate handling offence on the line reset the offside? I contend no. Okay in this situation it can be considered a save in which case it is not a reset anyway.
I also believe that the referee has to manage match control issues and it would pose problems for the referee if he where to ignore a deliberate handling of the ball and a player in a clear offside position being allowed to continue off that clear handling. The best decision is to penalise the deliberate handling and to not even consider the advantage. Trying to explain that the contact off the hand to the player in an offside position nullified the offside and that advantage was played on the handling because it was a deliberate play would cause all sorts of problems for the referee. The referee will have enough problems dealing with the deliberate handling call without adding to his woes of offside being ruled out due to the reset.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Karlene,
A great question!
I will respectfully disagree with my colleagues here and state that if the offside attacker is innocent of any interference (involvement) PRIOR to the foul of deliberate handling and he receives a GIFT with the ball falling conveniently for him off a deliberate handling (DH) by an opponent that is NOT a save, I will consider the offside reset as the ball is no longer last touched by the team mate and permit play to continue using law 5 advantage clause if indeed there was one!

If the DH was to deny a goal the only possible restart is a DFK or PK and show the red card to the defender because law 11 states offside is NOT reset on a deliberate save only on a deliberate play. I base my opinion on the latest teaching and guidelines those in authority are providing. Wrong offside calls does not get reversed in any protest known to date , however, it often gets you sent home if you are the WC official or AR who made the mistake!

It was bad enough to make a positional error because of the rapid movement of all the bits and pieces but we now have interpretive issues as to actual involvement that seem to be making themselves known as of late


Within this muddled mess of offside interpretations is a revisionist view of what a deliberate challenge is compared to a deliberate save and a deliberate play. What is in effect is a relaxing of the offside criteria to go for a broader more goal approach philosophy



Deliberately playing the ball must be a controlled possession or a controlled pass

INCORRECT - It is ball played with a conscious decision and realization of the consequences of action

Deliberately playing the ball involves a conscious act of a player whereby his making contact with the ball with his feet, head, hands or body was the result of him initiating a sequence of events in a timely manner! There is no guarantee of control or possession in a deliberate action. It does involve a PHYSICAL touch of the ball



(3) A miss kick or poor header is considered a deflection/rebound

INCORRECT A miss kick or poor header is more often a MISTAKE made when choosing to deliberately play the ball! We do not award offside for a mistake, if it was a DELIBERATE PLAY! HOWEVER, the position or movement of the feet or head or hands apparently trying to react does not necessarily mean the ball was deliberately played!

What determines if a mistake is a deliberate play or was it a deflection or a rebound? Perhaps if we used similar criteria as we use to judge handles the ball deliberately!



•DISTANCE: How far away is the ball? ?



•FLIGHT PATH: Is the ball's speed, direction, or angle altered on its way towards the player?



•SPEED: How fast is that ball moving?



•SPACE: is there room to react?



•TIME: Is there time to prepare?



•IMPACT: Does the ball strike the player?



• An impact is NOT deliberately playing the ball, nor a mistake, it is either




•{a} rebound which is a ball that bounces back after striking a hard surface or



•{b} deflection which is a ball that alters it trajectory or being caused to change direction upon impact

Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Karlene,

As you can see from the above responses, there are still plenty of areas where the laws aren't explicitly clear, so it falls to the interpretation of the referee.

I share the view of ref McHugh - the last effectively state that if the defender plays the ball and it goes to an attacker in an offside position, then there's no offence. I think it's safely assumed that the laws intend for the play to be legal - and deliberate handling isn't. It wouldn't make sense for an illegal play to be a feature of the offside law. So deliberate handling can never reset offside.

Furthermore, what does 'plays' mean? This is also the subject of much debate amongst referees, but for me it's control - and given the defender didn't direct the ball but tried to stop it and it carried through to an attacker, I don't think there was control - so for me, there's 2 reasons why offside isn't reset.

The reason why we can't play advantage off the Deliberate Handling and allow the offside attacker to receive the ball is because a player can't commit an offence to take the advantage. Given offside wasn't reset we're still considering the offside infringement - so if we played advantage, we're allowing an offside infringement to occur. That cannot happen.

So, the deliberate handling occurred first, therefore that's the foul.

Answer provided by Referee MrRef

NEW INFORMATION HAS BEEN RECIEVED FROM A CREDIBLE SOURCE!!!
Hello Karlene,
my my young lady how your question has reverberated these hallowed walls! The back ground chatter of your innocent and most excellent query has created a wide interest and divergent opinions that contend OFFSIDE is not what it once was.

LAW 11 OFFSIDE is not a new concept, recently the IFAB and FIFA had a few words deleted, added a phrase or two, supposedly to clarify some ambiguity in reasoning on the part of those who try to decipher the context of Law 11.

Offside is often referred to as a simple premise yet its application, terrifies, mystifies and just plain seems to defy understanding at times. We frequently scratch our heads here and try to determine if we actually understand what FIFA or the IFAB is telling us or is it only our opinion of what we think they are telling us that we are in fact telling others! We try very hard to be correct and provide responses to those that send us questions with solid credible facts, however, this web site and the answers to these questions are not sanctioned by or affiliated with any governing body of soccer. Our opinions expressed on this site should not be considered official interpretations of the Laws of the Game they are merely opinions of AskTheRef and our panel members.

The gist of it is we are divided here on the panel but the greatest thing is even when we agree to disagree we remain united and on the same side, which is for the good of the game! We all agree FIFA and IFAB must offer clear concise directions to educate and clear up certain misconceptions or ideas that linger in the minds of so many of us.

It may well be a referee has no right to an opinion here as we are not able to alter laws to suit our versions of fairplay but at this time many are adamant in their respective positions. Given the amount of class and integrity that exists on this panel you will have to suffer two separate answers put forth by those dedicated to answering as truthfully and as intelligently as their faith, education and passion allows!

If we get a definitive answer from a credible source we all can get behind we will contact you again but as I ALWAYS say YOUR MATCH! YOUR DECISION! YOUR REPUTATION! is based on everything you choose to do as well as what you choose not to do!
respectfully
from our pitch to your pitch in the spirit of fair play!

PS as of NOV 10th 2014 we have received definitive answer to this question from a direct FIFA source that the foul of handles the ball deliberately is in fact considered a deliberate play under the LOTG, offside is reset and advantage could be applied


It is irrelevant which was the original direction of the ball. There is a deliberate handling offense, which is not a save, before any potential offside offense.


The ball to the player in the offside position does not come from a rebound, deflection or deliberate save. The ball is received from a deliberate pass or touch/play (deliberate act) by the defender, as such the player, as per the LOTG, can’t be called offside.


The question becomes if advantage can be applied by the referee in these cases. In any handling offense the referee may apply advantage if the team benefits from such an advantage. So since the player can’t be offside from a deliberate play you would apply the advantage and continue.


The same would not be true if the referee judged that the handling was an actual deliberate save. In that case, as per the LOTG, it would still be offside for the player to participate in which case the DFK and possible caution or DOGSO should be applied as no advantage is possible!