Question Number: 33626

Law 11 - Offside 9/6/2019

RE: Adult

Mehdi of Tus, The Greater Khorasan Iran asks...

Question:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B10cGR0BHuI/?igshid=s2z4jmxs3y8h

First of all, excuse me for the inconvenience of the link. But I had to find the best view for you guys to be able to judge this decision.
My question is, should this goal have been disallowed because the attacker who dodged out of the ball's way was in the offside position when the ball was hit?
Thank you guys for creating this convenient platform!

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Mehdi, key issue is not that the player was in an offside position , he clearly was, but was he involved in how the situation ended? If he did not touch the ball, thus he has not interfered in play but he WAS positioned between the shot and the keeper. It is ok to avoid the ball, however, even an accidental touch is sufficient to stop play and award the INDFK for offside. The officials are making their decision, based on the position and movements of the PIOP as to did he get a slight touch or unfairly impact the ability of the keeper to see or react to the shot? All officials with integrity be they CR center ref, or AR Assistant ref or as 4O 4th offical or var review referees or goal line judges all make decisions based on their view of the situation then applying their understanding of the LOTG to thumbs up or down. As my colleagues have stated the LOTG do NOT allow a PIOP (player in offside position) to interfere with an opponent, in this case the keeper. We know from the arm chair in slow motion our perceptions can be tainted. In my opinion there appears to be sufficient involvement or a suspicion of a touch to warrant an offside call
ITOOTR (in the opinion of the referee) his match his decision his reputation! Chèers

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Mehdi
What we can say for certain is that the attacker was clearly in an offside position. That is without doubt.
Now the key question is whether his actions interfered with an opponent in this the goalkeeper.
Law 11 tells us that it is an offside offence if a player in an offside position interferes with an opponent ** by preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision** or
** making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball **
Both are certainly strong possibilities here as perhaps the goalkeeper was unsighted by the attacker or that he thought the ball was going to come off the attacker hedging his movement to take account of that.
It is a judgement call for the officials on the day and if it was ruled out for offside then so be it. There are grounds for an offside call.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Mehdi,
It's a little difficult to tell from the clip as we can't really see what the goalkeeper does and how he reacts to the incoming shot. It does appear that the player steps out of the path of the ball and so it's highly likely he was in the keepers line of sight but in the final analysis, it's up to the referee to decide whether the keeper has been prevented from playing or being able to play the ball, by the presence of an opponent in an offside position. If the referee decides the keeper was so affected, the goal should be ruled out but if they decide the keeper's ability to play the ball was not affected, they should allow it.

I have to say I don't like to second-guess a referee who was actually there, much closer than us and (hopefully) in a better position than us to judge.