Question Number: 33863

Law 11 - Offside 2/2/2020

RE: International Adult

Lek Unok of Hua Hin, Prachuabkhirikhan Thailand asks...

In the recent USWNT vs Haiti Olympic Qualifying game, Haiti had a goal disallowed, apparently for offside according to the commentary. The assistant referee does seem to be making the flag signal for an offside offence but the ball came in from a corner kick.

See action starting at 1:28 in the video below.

Was this a correct decision? Was there anything other than offside that you can see, that the goal could have been ruled out for?

https://youtu.be/QquJEsSEy9E

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Lek
Oh oh big error I'm afraid
It cannot be offside as it is a corner kick and even if the Haiti player is in an offside position it just cannot be offside as the ball in fact touches no one else other than the scorer.
Also I do not see anything else that could be called and it looks like an offside flag to me
So if that is the case and it certainly looks that way it is a huge error and one that has serious consequences for the referee crew from Jamaica.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Lek,
I'm sorry to say that seems like an inexplicable error.

As ref McHugh says, it can't be offside because it's a corner kick and there is no sign I can see of any other potential offence. I can only speculate that the AR may have got too focused in on the fact that a player in an offside position had obstructed the goalkeeper's line of vision and forgot that the ball was coming in from a corner, where there can be no offside offence.

Having tried to find some information about this, it seems the assistant referee in question has been sent home from the competition because of this mistake.

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 33885