Question Number: 31185

Law 11 - Offside 1/16/2017

RE: Rec Adult

Carlos of Lisboa, Lisboa Portugal asks...

I would like to have your opinion on the following.
http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/MBPzsi3tPVKgWhm0oczO

The goal was allowed and ,In my opinion, was a correct judgment by the referee.

But this gola has created plenty of controversy and the majority of former referees that commented it on tv, are saying that should be awarded an offside (to the player who scored the goal).

I don't think he touch the ball; he do not interfer with any opponent player; he doesn't obstruct his opponent line of vision , ...

No offside in my opinion.

What is yours ?

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Carlos
If the player in an offside positioned touched the ball then it was clearly offside. It does not look like he touched the ball and that was the opinion of the assistant referee.
Now there is certainly no line of sight issue here however it does come under the 3rd bullet point of the Interfering with an Opponent advice in Law 11 which states
**preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by
# clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
# challenging an opponent for the ball or
# clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action impacts on an opponent or
# making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball**
Had the goalkeeper moved or dived because of the action of the PIOP then it would certainly have impacted on him which makes it offside. As it looks I doubt that it did have any impact as the GK still had to move to his left to deal with the onside player and as that was not a direct attempt on goal by that player one can opine that the GK was not impacted there either such as being slow to get across to save due to waiting to see what happened at the PIOPs location.
Now have a look at this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7mp0qKln48
The PIOP makes a move to the ball and it was agreed at the time that his actions impacted on the GK due to the GKs raised arm reaction and his slowness to get across to his left to the goal scorer. That should have been called offside. Is the scenario in your example different and I would argue that it is.

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Carlos,
This is an interesting one. If he touched the ball, obviously that's an offside infringement. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that he didn't.
The 2016/17 LOTG have made a change to assist the keeper a little here, in that if an attacker in an offside position makes an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball.
This covers scenarios where an attacker attempting to play the ball, or dummying the ball, affects the goalkeeper.

Looking at this play, the goalkeeper clearly held his line waiting to see what this attacker was going to do - he made decisions based on this attacker in an offside position.

However, that still is insufficient to penalise that player for offside - had he stood there and the keeper was torn between both players, then that's the keeper's problem and it's a legitimate goal. But given the attempt on the ball, now we have an obvious action that's tied to the keeper's indecision.

So the question is whether it was the obvious action that had an impact, or if in this scenario it wasn't the attempt on the ball itself that had an issue.

Given that an obvious action always requires the presence of the attacker I don't believe we can say 'well, had he not attempted to kick the ball he was still there and the same decision would have been made by the keeper' (had this not been an issue, the keeper would likely have come out and intercepted the ball before reaching the other attacker).

For me, it's clear that the keeper stood his ground responding to the action, so it's offside for me. But this is a tricky one and it really gets down to the fine details of offside, and I expect disagreement even amongst referees on this one.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Carlos,
You say that the offside-positioned player (OPP) did not interfere with an opponent but there are a couple of 'sub-clauses' within that category that I think we have to look at quite closely before making that determination.

These have been mentioned above and are as follows:

''- clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action impacts on an opponent or
- making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball''

Of those two, I think the first is the more potentially applicable here. For me, the OPP does indeed attempt to play the ball as it passes close to him so the question then is, did this action impact on an opponent (the goalkeeper)? This is where I think it becomes a little debatable and while I can see both sides of the argument, for me it didn't seem that the keeper was unduly impacted by this action - so I think the officials made the right decision. However I can certainly see where a different conclusion could be supported.