Question Number: 16532

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 9/3/2007

RE: Competitive Under 13

Aubrey Waddell of Maryville, TN USA asks...

Just when I think I've seen it all...I was AR1 for a competitive league game between two evenly matched U12 boys teams. Late in the game, with team A leading team B 4-2, a team A midfielder took control of the ball just past midfield in team B's end. Spotting one of his outside mids sprinting down the left sideline, he passed in the air in that direction. The team A outside mid was about 10 yards in offside position on the pass, and as the ball sailed downfield AR2 on the right sideline raised his flag to signal offside. The referee had his back to AR2 and said later he was about to whistle the offside himself with no help needed from AR2, but the fact remains that he had not yet whistled or gestured or vocalized offside. Suddenly, a team B fullback who was in the penalty area, using his own judgment that the obvious offside would be called (he also had his back to AR2), raced over and caught the ball in mid-air (in his own penalty area) and placed it down for an indirect free kick out. The referee looked over at AR2, saw the offside flag in the air, and awarded the indirect free kick out to team B. I have decided that if I were referee I would have awarded a penalty kick in favor of team A, based on the fact that the ball was still in play when team B player took it on himself to deem the ball out of play and deliberately handle the ball due to a yet uncalled offside infraction. I base this on the fact that several onside team A players were rushing forward and the offside team A player might have taken himself out of the play, since he had not touched the ball or interfered with a player and the pass was at least 10 yards to his right when the team B player caught it like an American football. While I respect the above stated call of the referee and can see where he might make it, does anyone agree with my hypothetical call?

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

Aubrey, as you know it is the referee who makes the final decision on any offside call. The old FIFA 2006 Q&A had a question that had a similar situation:
[quote]
A player is in an offside position and an assistant referee raises his flag.
The referee does not see the signal and a defending player denies an
opponent an obvious goalscoring opportunity. The referee stops play
and only then sees the signal of the assistant referee. What action
does the referee take?
a) If he accepts the signal for offside from the assistant referee, he
does not send off the defender, since no obvious goalscoring
opportunity has occurred. Play is restarted with an indirect free
kick to the defending team *.
The player may be sanctioned however if, in the opinion of the
referee, his action on its own was a cautionable or sending-off
offence.
b) If he does not accept that an offside offence has occurred, the
defending player is sent off for denying an obvious goalscoring
opportunity and play is restarted with a direct free kick * or penalty
kick to the attacking team.
[unquote]

If the referee accepts that there was an offside offense, that is the offense that happened first. Therefore whatever the defender on team B did was of no importance in the game. The wise referee would speak to the B player to remind him to play to the whistle, that if he had decided there was no offside instead of an IFK outbound he'd be looking at a PK!

So now the question becomes, was there or was there not an offside offense? We have a player in an offside position making a run for the ball. We don't have to wait for that player to actually get to the ball before we make the offside call, we only need to be reasonably sure that the player will be the only attacker who might get to the ball. Then again, we have a defender who intercepts the ball (by catching it, deliberate handling) before the offside-positioned attacker can get to it. Has that defender interrupted the offside offense by playing the ball? The referee would have to ask himself whether, if the defender played the ball normally and cleared it out, would he have made the decision for offside?

This is an interesting question that can really only be answered by being there and seeing it. Your hypothetical call would be just as valid as the referee's call. It depends on the point of view of the guy/gal in the middle at the time.

Answer provided by Referee Steve Montanino

I do not agree with your call. You have stated both the AR and the Referee have observed a violation of law 11 AND decided to punish for it. The defender should not have handled the ball before he heard a whistle, but in this case he was saved due to the fact that the first offense committed was offside. You must accept offenses in the order that they occur, in this case the referee and AR decided the attacker was offside. It's even an easy call to sell because the flag went up before the handling took place.

Ref Voshol is correct, the referee should make it crystal clear to the defender that if he hadn't been so lucky, he would have likely cost his team a goal (via PK) and possibly picked himself up some color card depending on the circumstances of his offense.

However, I think awarding a penalty to penalize the player when the other team had already committed an offense would be an unwise decision.

I would agree with your call IF the AR and Referee had not yet determined that law 11 had been breached while they were waiting to determine which attackers were going to get involved, but that is not what happened here.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Looks to me like the only person out there who had a good grasp of things was the defender who gave offside. The referee had his back to his linesman during an attack, the linesman raised his flag at the back of his referee KNOWING he couldn't see it. Mechanics Gents, mechanics. When do we flag for offside? When there is a touch OR when we absolutely know the offside guy ain't gonna give up on the ball OR when it looks as if there is going to be a collision between opponents. Did that happen, because you don't mention that aspect of things.

My colleagues offer the school book solution, offside position was first and if there is participation by the offside player, indirect coming out and words of warning to our referee/defender. I see a deeper thing, poor crew coordination. This is something that needs fixing. The referee needs to find a way to place the ball between him and the lead assistant, even if he has to run a bit [eek]. The AR needs to look at his referee before raising the flag to see if he can have any chance of seeing it. [if not raising the flag is just so much wasted effort, yell his name then flag, pro's have beeper flags that do this].

Mechanics, referees -- get the basics down.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Nathan Lacy

Excellent answers by Refs Voshol, Montanino and Fleischer. My only addition would be to the mechanics of making the offside call in that I would ensure that all knew that the offside infraction occurred FIRST and therefore the handling was not at issue. Also, as stated above, the defender and I would have a bit of a chat. In a match for which I was an AR we had a similar situation with one notable exception. The referee never saw my flag for the offside despite repeated attempts to get his attention. Since there was quite a bit of commotion on the field because of a defender feigning a strike to the face I had plenty of time to "assist" the referee with the "mass confrontation" that was taking place and advise him of the sequence of events that had occurred; i.e. the offside infraction had occurred before anything else transpired. Since play had not restarted we were able to amend the restart to the appropriate choice (IFK) and deal with the other misconducts (note the plural) that had occurred on the field. Once we got it all sorted out we got on with play and, believe it or not, gained a good deal of credibility in the eyes of the players. All the best,