Question Number: 33481

Law 11 - Offside 6/25/2019

RE: Competitive Other

Joseph Frasca of Toronto , Ontario Canada asks...

Law 5 regarding advantage cannot be applied to law 11. This i have been taught and other refs here have confirmed my beliefs. Does fifa or any other league explicitly state that law 5 may not be applied to law 11?

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Joseph,
advantage can & occasionally does indeed apply to law 11. It often involves keeper possession in the hands instead of putting the ball onto the ground for an INDFK or ignoring it because it was overlooked at the time. .You see if the AR flags in preparation to head off a collision between an offside attacker & say the keeper.and the ball skips to the keeper the CR could wave off the flag. In essence the criteria might have been met but the game did not require a stoppage or inversely the CR, in his opinion, by waving off the flag, is stating the criteria of involvement does not apply. In a recent match the keeper came out to challenge as he caught the ball he jumped over-top a downed offside attacker who was inside his PA and kind of stumbled . There was NO doubt the offside player interfered but the keeper regained his footing ran out to the edge of the 18 yard area and punted the ball deep into the opposition half for a counter attack. The AR had raised the flag but the CR waved him off..

NOTHING in the laws of the game state this is NOT possible. The difference in a ball in or out of play into touch is NOT the same as a RECOGNIZED involvement from an offside positioned player in that if play continues it renders everything after as mute.

A ball goes out of play in behind the goal line but the defender clears it up-field fast break, they score, before kick off the VAR tells the CR the ball CLEARLY had exited the FOP just prior to the clearance. Guess what? NO goal. Crappy mechanics perhaps but restart based on corner or goal kick

But if say there was an attacker who clearly offside had challenged that defender and VAR shows this after the goal is scored do you think we are coming back for an INDFK near the goal line on a team that just scored a goal???
Not a chance my friend. Not a chance. Advantage played.
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Joseph
Old school advice I'm afraid. It is no longer the case.
Advantage can be applied to Law 11 if the referee believes that by doing so it benefits the offended against team. The only time advantage cannot be played is on Law 9 when the ball is out of play.
By its nature advantage is not going to present very often in offside certainly not at the lower levels. At the higher levels where the Pros just want the ball they can get *annoyed* where referees pull play back to give an IDFK when all that they do is go back to where they were at a few seconds before. So advantage at the higher levels does happen and does so regularly.
For example lone PIOP heads the ball on to the goalkeeper who collects the ball and throws it to a defender some thirty yards away unmarked who is going to push forward another 20 yards. Why would the referee pull play back to the IDFK rather than allowing advantage? He simple waves the AR flag down and signals advantage.
Or let us say that there is an offside in the last minute of the game and the goalkeeper gathers the ball to run to punt the ball forward to a team mate who is unmarked. Why would advantage not be played there?

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Joseph,
No organisation that I am aware of, is teaching that advantage cannot be applied to law 11. Certainly the IFAB, the sole guardian of the laws, do not state this. Now as always, advantage must be used judiciously and as my colleagues have pointed out, it quite often isn't appropriate to offside calls, though it can be, when the right circumstances occur as they have further outlined.

The law says, quite plainly and simply, that the referee:

''allows play to continue when an offence occurs and the non-offending team will benefit from the advantage''

As you can see, this statement does not call out law 11 as a law where this is not to be used.