Question Number: 17109

Law 11 - Offside 10/5/2007

RE: Other

Nicholas Broderick of St. John's, NL Canada asks...

Thank you for your responses to my last question [16891]. They were all very helpful. I'm glad you liked it enough to award it home-page status! And now I have another:

An attacker is in possession of the ball inside his opponent's penalty area and is about to take a shot at goal. The shot is taken by the attacker and, in the opinion of the referee, is on a B-line for the top-right corner of the goal. However, a defender standing on the edge of his goal area blocks the shot by deliberately handling the ball. No advantage accrues for the attacking team, and a penalty kick is awarded. Before administering any discipline to the defender, he notices an attacker who was standing in the line of sight of the goalkeeper (he was not impeding the goalkeeper's progress in any way) as the shot was taken, and appeared to be in an offside position.

Question: If the attacker was in an offside position and in the line of sight of the goalkeeper, should the defender only be cautioned for unsporting behavior (as opposed to being dismissed for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity by handling the ball) under the logic that no goalscoring opportunity existed, since the offside attacker would have prevented the goalkeeper from playing the ball if it had gone past the defender's hand? Should the referee confer with his assistant to determine the position of the attacker at the moment the ball was touched by his teammate before administering a caution or dismissal to the defender?

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

If you are giving offside and the offside occured before the shot on goal then there could be no goal scoring opportunity as play had stopped. In fact, there can be no caution either. what are you going to caution the defender for? Deliberately handling the ball while the ball was out of play? Remember, all play after the offside infraction never happened. Other forms of misconduct could be punished but not DOGSO for handling. You better be sure about the offside offense. I guess a problem I have with your scenario is that the referee notices the supposedly offside player after the shot has been taken. How do you know he was blocking the keeper's line of sight BEFORE the shot was taken?

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Without a signal from my AR at this juncture in the game, I'm going with what I saw - a defender deliberately knocking down a sure goal. Penalty kick and send-off for defender for DOGSOH. If my AR has no signal, then we agree there was nothing to be concerned about. There is no way I'm going to second guess what I know I saw for what I think might have occurred.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

I will attempt to take Ref Maloney's statement one step further. What she says is correct IF, big if here, the assistant referee is properly positioned at the last but one player or last two players. If the assistant is not where he is supposed to be then his look at offside may be no better than mine and NOW I must act alone in taking a decision. The assistant improperly positioned is not good and it reflects badly on the referee team. We are paid to be at the proper place at the proper instant, we must earn that fee.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

If the referee makes a decision on what he sees only to receive additional information from say the AR . The referee can decide a restart based on the acceptance of that extra information or go with his original decision as play was not yet restarted. If the offside is accepted it is an INDFK out . To award a caution show a yellow card for the attempted misconduct of a DOGSO (always a red card offence)as my colleague Ref Contarino states might be a stretch as the offside was considered as occurring first then all the handling did was stop the ball from leaving the field for a quicker restart!Certainly a warning you are a lucky SOB my friend.
Cheers