Question Number: 29255

Law 11 - Offside 3/21/2015

Tano of Melbourne, Victoria Australia asks...

This one has generated a lot of debate among our club's supporters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAQlcRAtrGk (at 1:27).

Player A puts a cross in, and his momentum takes him out of ply, behind the goal line. A shot comes from the cross, which the keeper saves. Player A is clearly offside at this point, but he is nowhere near the ball. A defender clears the ball towards the sideline, but player A races back into the field of play to intercept, before a goal ends up being scored.

Should the goal have been allowed/disallowed? When the original shot was taken, Player A was offside and he subsequently received an advantage from being in that position (even though he was off the pitch), but does the defender's clearance reset the offside? Does it matter that between the shot being taken and Player A's final touch, that he never came back onside?

I look forward to having this settled!

Thanks,

Aaron

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Aaron,
Hmm I looked to see the defender's clearance AFTER the keeper's save and to be honest from the video I had a difficult time seeing who actually last touched the ball as it sprang from a group of four. It does appear to me and likely the clearance WAS seen by the AR /referee as a DP (deliberate play) on the ball by a white defender, the late arriving red attacker coming back into play from beyond the goal line is NOT offside as the DP by the defender reset any restriction.
The ball is no longer last touched by the red team given the white team had a deliberate touch at the ball but muffed it! Tough luck good goal! There is NO debate required!
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Tano,

Thanks for supplying the video - it helps a lot. As an Australian and keen follower of the Hyundai A-League I've been discussing this incident on other online sites.

I believe the right decision was made.

First off, if the attacker is behind the goal line in this scenario, he's considered 'on' the goal line for offside purposes. So no question about his position.

'Gaining an Advantage from being in an offside position' refers specifically to when the attacker touches the ball after it has deflected off an opponent (or the goalpost/crossbar). So that's the one angle that may apply here.

So has offside been reset? A defensive touch may nullify offside - how much control is required is a matter of interpretation, and may also vary between countries. I'm not aware of what Football Federation Australia have had to say on this matter. Some will argue that the defender needs to have controlled the ball to reset offside - if he appears to have gained control but just didn't quite send the ball where he wanted (eg was passing it back to his keeper but didn't hit it hard enough and it fell short, or skewed it to the side for an offside attacker to run onto) then that's his problem and offside has been reset. If he made a kicking movement towards the ball but didn't gain control....well, that's a bit more debatable.

Fortunately, I think this falls into the latter. I don't think it was a desperate kick into a tackle with no control over where the ball went - I believe he did have some control over the ball, and it just happened to fall to the player he didn't want it to. That's reset offside, so the goal is legitimate.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Tano
Okay the easy bit first. The attacker whose momentum took him over the goal line has come back from an offside position. If the ball had come directly from the goalkeepers save then he would be called offside when he headed the ball.
Now to the difficult part. I have watched the video multiple times and to be honest I'm not 100% sure. With freeze frame it looks like a white defender / white boot kicked the ball up in the air ( also the most likely event) in which case the ball was last deliberately played by a defender and offside was reset. If the ball was played by Orange then there is no question that it was offside.
I would also say that the AR who would have been looking in at this may have seen the white sock / white boot kick the ball and as a result not flag the offside. Otherwise it would have been an easy offside to call if the ball was played by Orange.