Offside flag or not?

Event from a recent game. I'm lead assistant in this story. Blue attacker is in a clear offside position and sprinting towards opponents penalty area. The ball is played forward by a blue midfield player towards his sprinting colleague.

The red defender is aware of the attackers run past him and while running back just about stretches out to clear the ball into touch.

No other blue player is anywhere near close enough to be involved in the play.

I had gone with quite an early flag as the chance of collision between offside position attacker and out rushing keeper would be high. The defender would not have played the ball into touch if he had not been aware of the run of the attacker.

The ref went with the offside flag and award idfk.

Right or wrong on my part?

i'd say correct as the attacker's position has affected the actions of the defender?

Offside can be tricky. If a collision with the keeper was a real possibility, then the early flag could be justified. But it was a VERY early flag if the ball still had to pass a final defender. If we remove the keeper collision as a factor, then there are only three ways for the offside positioned attacker to enter active play: 1. Interfering with play is out, as it involves actually touching the ball. 3. Gaining an Advantage is also out as no kind of deflection gave the attacker the ball. That just leaves 2. Interfering with an opponent. The new laws spell it out it very clearly - it involves:

• preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by
clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
• challenging an opponent for the ball or
• clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action
impacts on an opponent or
• making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an
opponent to play the ball

bullet points 1 - 3 are all invalid in your scenario since no vision blocking, challenge or play on the ball was made by the attacker. That just leaves point 4. The run the offside positioned attacker made is only counted as interfering if it impacts the ABILITY of the defender to play the ball e.g. got so close to the ball that it was not easy to gauge its movement in case of a possible touch. Just being there, and forcing the defender into a hasty play is not enough to count. The IFAB made this plain in a recent position paper.

To sum up: if the possibility of keeper collision was very close, an early flag is justified, otherwise the attackers run may have made the defender commit a hasty and ill judged play on the ball, but did not affect his ABILITY to play it....and hence we give a throw in to the attackers.

@Ganajin how would one communicate this to the (presumably) protesting defender without compromising your assistant?

This would really be the AR's call. As CR I wouldn't over-rule on this. If he flags, you give the offside. If he doesn't, you give the throw-in...and if necessary call 'not in active play" to the grumbling defender.

Ganajin said:

This would really be the AR's call. As CR I wouldn't over-rule on this. If he flags, you give the offside. If he doesn't, you give the throw-in...and if necessary call 'not in active play" to the grumbling defender.

Click to expand...

yup ok, i'm with you, common sense and keeps everyones integrity intact

But it would be a sensible inclusion in pre-match instructions to your ARs to remind them to hold the flag, and only signal offside either when the player a) actually becomes part of active play or b) if he is the only attacker chasing the ball and a clash with an opponent is imminent. In the OP, given that the ball had not cleared the last defender yet, it may perhaps have been too early a flag anyway.

I had a grumble from a player the other week:

10 mins to go in the 2nd half, blummin' hot day, red attacker just in oppositions half, in offside position. Ball gets hoofed over the top, landing a long way up field. CARs flag goes straight up. I don't whistle, yet ... Red attacker then sets off in chase of the ball down the wing so I blow for offside.

As grumbling red attacker stalks back to the half way line, huffing & puffing and dripping sweat, he says "you could of blown up before I went sprinting after that." "Sorry, but until you started running after it, you weren't interfering with play" I smiled back. "Fair enough, good call" and the (good natured) game carried on.

SM said:

Event from a recent game. I'm lead assistant in this story. Blue attacker is in a clear offside position and sprinting towards opponents penalty area. The ball is played forward by a blue midfield player towards his sprinting colleague.

The red defender is aware of the attackers run past him and while running back just about stretches out to clear the ball into touch.

No other blue player is anywhere near close enough to be involved in the play.

I had gone with quite an early flag as the chance of collision between offside position attacker and out rushing keeper would be high. The defender would not have played the ball into touch if he had not been aware of the run of the attacker.

The ref went with the offside flag and award idfk.

Right or wrong on my part?

Click to expand...

No other onside attacker with a chance of playing the ball? The unless the ball is clearly going out or clearly being intercepted by a defender without being interfered with by that attacker, then the early flag is correct (and on that last point, you'll err much more towards the early flag if it's going to be the keeper).

CapnBloodbeard said:

No other onside attacker with a chance of playing the ball? The unless the ball is clearly going out or clearly being intercepted by a defender without being interfered with by that attacker, then the early flag is correct (and on that last point, you'll err much more towards the early flag if it's going to be the keeper).

Click to expand...

I fully concur with CapnBloodbeard's comments. But in the scenario presented the ball WAS intercepted by a defender. The point at issue was surely whether the mere presence of a player in an offside position was enough to call it Interfering with an Opponent.

If the ball had past the defender (who only just stretched enough to intercept it) it was a very quick potential collision between keeper and attacker (as I alluded to in op).

On reflection and taking on board comments above, I think it is one of the grey area ones. If I had waited the collision may have occurred unnecessarily, but then maybe not, I can't see into the future, so who knows. I flagged early and a idfk occurred and a flash point didn't occur from that scenario either - although the home idiot coach did talk about me not knowing the "rules" of the game (the gems of idiocy this man produced throughout the game were hilarious i swear the availability of the LOTG for everyone to read must be some kind of secret known only to refs )

Comments appreciated from all.