Question Number: 2961

Law 11 - Offside

Tom Rodeheffer of Mountain View, CA USA asks...

Re #2915 (and Kieth's supplement #2957): Perhaps the following, more specific, scenario about resetting offside on out-of-play will help elucidate matters:..As the team B defense clears the ball upfield, attacker A1 kneels down near the corner to re-tie his shoe. Meanwhile, A1's teammates retreat into their defending half and B's field defenders all push up to the half-way line. Suddenly, team A clears the ball back into B's defending half. Attacker A2, with excellent timing, had been sprinting upfield but was still in his defending half at the moment the ball was kicked. The ball lands at the feet of A2, fifteen yards behind all field defenders, with only the keeper to beat. The keeper charges, A2 shoots, and the keeper sells out. The ball deflects off the keeper's hands and sails over the crossbar, about midfield but clearly on A1's side...Attacker A1, although in an offside position, has never been closer than twenty yards from the ball, and the ball has never been heading toward him. So he was never participating in play. He never interfered with any defender. And he hasn't gained any advantage. So there is no offside infraction -- if the shot had gone into goal, it would have scored. A1 has finished with his shoe and has stood up. He is standing near the corner, clearly not involved in play...So the ball is out of play, with a corner kick to team A. B's keeper is on the ground, fifteen yards out from goal. Attacker A2 is about twenty yards from goal and is starting to run after the ball in order to restart as quickly as possible. B's field defenders are recovering, but are still more than thirty yards from goal...After sailing over the crossbar, the ball hits a tree (off the field of play) and rebounds directly to A1, who immediately places it in the corner arc and kicks it to A2, who taps it into the open goal...Clearly, A1 got an advantage from his offside position, and it sure seems like an unfair advantage. (If the ball had rebounded to A1 from the goal post, offside would have been called.) However, in the scenario under consideration, the advantage did not materialize until after the ball was out of play. Should A1 nonetheless be called for an offside infraction?..Or perhaps this is a case of USB. If so, when does the USB happen? If it happens before the ball is kicked and moves, the restart remains a corner kick to A. If it happens after the ball is kicked and moves, then the restart is IFK to B. Puzzling. Anyway, a yellow card seems a bit harsh for what is essentially just offside, so I wouldn't want to call USB...Then there's always the game management technique of pretending to hear a call for substitution so as to delay the restart and negate A1's unfair advantage. Unfortunately, some competitions don't allow substitutions on corner kicks, so this might be risky...As a modified scenario, suppose that A1 had merely placed the ball in the corner arc and then quickly exchanged places with A2, with A2 taking the corner kick and A1 then attempting to tap the ball into goal. This seems perfectly fair to me. After all, a restart is supposed to be quick if the team in possession wants it so, and an external agent (such as a spectator) is allowed to assist in retrieving the game ball. And once A2 kicks the ball for the corner kick, A1 would automatically be back onside...Perhaps some version of this scenario is what the USSF has in mind when stating that offside resets "when the ball goes out of play in favor of the opposing team".

Answer provided by Referee Starr

A very good question. The crux of this situation lies in whether or not A1 is participating in play. He is; however, his participation is not considered an infringement of Law XI. When the ball became out of play, his consideration for an infringement of Law XI was terminated. The circumstances that you have stated seem unfair but it is just a lucky (and advantageous)circumstance as well as perfectly legal. No offside call nor any consideration for USB. It was just his day!