Question Number: 33255

Law 11 - Offside 4/17/2019

RE: Competitive Adult

Peter Babbage of Hjorring , Denmark asks...

A player chips the ball in towards the forward who is in an offside position. As I understand it, if the ball brushes a defender, the receiver would be offside. If the defender stops the ball, passes back to the keeper to the forward , no offside. If the defender goes to head clear but gets it all wrong and it drops to the forward, offside or not? I assume he would be but in principle surely thats the same as the keeper making a save and it drops to the forward.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Peter,
Unfortunately, the law does not go into sufficient detail on the different ways a ball can be played by a defender, to make a definitive judgement on the scenario you describe. It simply says that:

''A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball (except from a deliberate save by any opponent) is not considered to have gained an advantage.''

As with so many aspects of the law, it is up to the referee in each individual case, to decide. In this case, the referee must reach their own conclusion on whether the actions of the defender were a deliberate play of the ball, or not.

As to whether this would be considered a save, it is again up to the referee to decide based on the law definition of a save as follows:

''A 'save' is when a player stops, or attempts to stop, a ball which is going into or very close to the goal with any part of the body except the hands/arms (unless the goalkeeper within the penalty area).''

So unless the ball was headed directly towards or very near to the goal, the header would probably not be classed as a save, as far as I can tell.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Peter
UEFA came out with a document which tried to assist match official in determining the difference between a deflection and a deliberate play.
It can be viewed on this site
http://www.law-11.com/delib-play--deflection
From your description I would opine that the header was deliberate play just poorly executed so offside is reset. Provided of course it is not a save?
A save is defined in the Laws which is outlined by Referee Grove. I would say that the save will look obvious as an attempt to stop the ball going towards goal as much like a deflection rather than a deliberate play including a header that has gone wrong.