Question Number: 35916

Law 11 - Offside 5/17/2025

RE: Recreational Other

Cliff of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba Canada asks...

Two players from Team A are in offside positions. A teammate has control of the ball and dribbles it so the ball is closer to the goal line than the two who were offside. If the player with the ball now passes it to either of those players, is an offside call to be made? Would it make a difference if the pass was to a different teammate who was in an onside position the whole time who then passed the ball to one of the two player who were initially in offside positions but are now not (whether due to ball position or defenders retreating towards goal line)?

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Cliff
Law 11 tells us in the opening line that it is not an offence to be in an offside position. A player in an offside has to interfere with play or an opponent at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate to be called offside.
So in your example the two players in an offside position have done nothing to be called offside as their team mate has begun a new phase of play by dribbling the ball forward.
When that player finally passes / crosses the ball the two PIOPs are behind the ball and therefore are now in an onside position so there cannot be an offside offence. They are now perfectly entitled to get involved in active play from those onside positions.

That is the current wording of Law 11 and some teams now use what you describe as a tactic to legitimately avoid say marking while in an offside position. It is a regular tactic at free kicks to see players positioned beyond the defensive offside line awaiting a second phase play from an onside team mate who plays the ball backwards to those team mates who are now in an onside position.

Some in the game don’t like it harkening back to when most likely what you describe may have been flagged offside. Even back in the day it was technically not offside either yet it was called regularly as that was the expected call.

That is well gone now and a player in an offside position now either have to interfere with play or an opponent at that time to be called offside. What happens after that in a second or third phase of play negates previous positioning.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Cliff,
One thing to bear in mind about offside decisions, is that it doesn't matter where players were at a previous time, it only matters where they were when the ball was last touched by a team mate before the time they became involved in active play by either touching the ball or interfering with an opponent.

So in both the examples you give, there is no offside offence because the players were not in an offside position when that last touch by a team mate took place, despite having been in an offside position at an earlier time.