Question Number: 33889

Law 11 - Offside 2/18/2020

RE: Adult

Dave Hannah of Halifax, West Yorkshire England asks...

In the Wolves v Leicester match the Boly goal was disallowed for Neto being offside.

However I thought that Law 11 states that you cannot be offside from a corner. Jota plays the corner to Neto (in an 'offside' position - but see Law 11) and gets the return in an onside position .. the play goes on towards the 'goal' being scored.

Was this an incorrect application of the Law?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Dave
Thanks for the question.
You are correct to state that a player cannot be offside from a corner kick in the same way as at a throw in or goal kick yet the key word is DIRECTLY.
The next touch by an attacker after the restart begins a new phase of play so as my colleagues point out the return pass was to the corner taker who was in a marginal offside position. Technology showed that the player was marginally offside so in Law 11 the decision was correct.
Had the player who received the ball directly from the corner had been in an offside position that would not be called and that is what is intended in Law 11 not subsequent play.
As a comment on these I am of the view that Law 11 as written was not intended to be used with technology. In the recent past I have seen many hairline offside decisions called due to inches where a players foot, knee is beyond part of the second last opponent with the offside technology image lines almost touching . Case in point was also the Arsenal goal v Man Utd. To the naked eye without technology those would rarely if ever given and to do so would be at best a guess. I think that without VAR there was every chance these offside would not have been called with the goal awarded.
ARs have been advised to keep the flag down in possible hairline offside positions until after the chance has been taken and as there was no flag here which could mean either the AR did not see it or he was waiting for VAR to call it. I feel the solution is to go to the concept of *daylight* between players in that all of the players body must be beyond the offside line not just part of it.
Anyway summary is that the correct call was made in line with Law 11.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

HI Dave ,
the offside position is overlooked only at the START of the corner kick restart, any subsequent touch of the ball by the receiving tram mate creates a BRAND NEW situation where we reconsider the positions of all other teammates (includes the corner kicker) and whether they become involved in active play or interfere with an opponent. The corner kick occurs, a team mate receives that ball and that team mate then redirects the ball BACK towards the corner kicker . This is a NEW phase of play and often the corner kicker is in an offside position on this return pass as it was clearly so in this case!
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Dave,
I'm afraid you have misread the scenario here (you also have the roles of the players reversed). When the return pass from Diogo Jota to the corner taker (Pedro Neto) was made, Neto was in an offside, not an onside position. Admittedly, he was only offside by a relatively small margin but offside nonetheless. It was also not one of those 'toenail' offsides where we're talking about a couple of millimetres, he was offside by at least several inches or so.

There's a fairly good image of it here:

https://www.sportbible.com/football/football-news-reactions-var-controversially-rules-out-wolves-opening-goal-vs-leicester-city-20200214

As you can see, there is clear daylight between the red and blue lines marking the positions of the attacker and second last defender.