A&H

Offside: Where does the offence occur?

T

The Don

New Member
Another one of my observations at a Non-League game I attended recently.

A forward was in a marginal (a foot as opposed to, say, 2 yards) offside position (a) some 10 yards inside his opponent’s half when a long pass was played into the space in front of him.

The official Assistant did not raise his flag and continued to keep up with the ball.

The forward I assume, saw no flag and chased the pass for about another 20 yards. When he got close to the ball, (b) the Assistant then raised his flag for offside.

Question: Where did the offside offence take place i.e. where should the free-kick be taken from, position (a) or (b)?
 
The Referee Store
It is not an offence to be in an offside position.

In simple terms, a player, having been in an offside position at the point a team mate last plays or touches the ball, commits an offside offence when be plays the ball, interferes with an opponent by impacting their ability to play the ball or gains an advantage

Each of these have a bit more detail in the laws of the game and perhaps aren't as simple as I have put them but it's the basics.

So in your example the player commits an offside offence at the point he plays the ball and the law states that free kicks are taken from where the offence occurs.

So the answer is B.
 
Very interesting. Thank you. In the 'good old days' the Assistant would have flagged at point (a) as soon as the player moved towards the ball.
I suppose tactically it's better for forwards to chase the ball well into their opponents half so that the free-kick can be taken as far as possible into that half rather than let the defender control the ball and start an immediate counter-attack from point (a).

Edit:
Just a further point, do any of you Officials worry about the risk of serious injury to players who think they are onside and who chase a through ball only to collide with and opponent when, in fact, it could have been prevented if the play had been stopped earlier?
 
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The Don said:
.
Edit:
Just a further point, do any of you Officials worry about the risk of serious injury to players who think they are onside and who chase a through ball only to collide with and opponent when, in fact, it could have been prevented if the play had been stopped earlier?
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A specific instruction we give and are given is to flag quick and early if that's a risk.

The guidance does say it's acceptable to flag a player moving towards a ball if no other team mate is looking likely to play it but it's more expected in England for the offence to actually happen, save for, the GK Attacker collision scenario which of course we want to avoid.
 
Thanks again. As a spectator, I often 'cringe' when players collide unnecessarily.
Can I just ask one further point?
If, before the chasing forward gets near or touches the through ball, is brought down by a defender or 'keeper in the Penalty Area, do you deem the forward to be offside or do you award a Penalty Kick and a possible Red Card?
 
At grassroots we are taught to flag quick if there’s a risk but in the EPL this does not happen and offsides are handled very differently.
 
The Don said:
Very interesting. Thank you. In the 'good old days' the Assistant would have flagged at point (a) as soon as the player moved towards the ball.
I suppose tactically it's better for forwards to chase the ball well into their opponents half so that the free-kick can be taken as far as possible into that half rather than let the defender control the ball and start an immediate counter-attack from point (a).
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I the old days, the definition of where the FK took place was also different. Until a few years ago, the FK was from the location of the OS player at the time the ball was touched/played by his teammate. A few years ago, they changed it to where the OS player becomes actively involved.

But you’re also wrong about the tactic in the sense that if the OS player doesn’t chase the bal, not OS offense occurs. The offense occurs when the player touches the ball OR when the OS player is pursuing and the AR/R determine that he is likely to get to the ball and on onside teammate has a chance to get there first.
 
The Don said:
Thanks again. As a spectator, I often 'cringe' when players collide unnecessarily.
Can I just ask one further point?
If, before the chasing forward gets near or touches the through ball, is brought down by a defender or 'keeper in the Penalty Area, do you deem the forward to be offside or do you award a Penalty Kick and a possible Red Card?
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In simple terms, if the attacker (who was in an offside position when the ball was played) commits an offside offence before being fouled then you give the offside. If not then you give the foul! As James has already said there are generally three possible ways an offence might have happened. However in your scenario, the attacker has not played or challenged for the ball ... so the most likely offence would be impacting the ability of a defender to play the ball.

Overall, going back to your OP, the higher the level of the football, the more careful the AR needs to be in raising their flag simply because an attacker in an offside position is chasing the ball. At any point this attacker might stop their run (before committing an offence) and another (onside) attacker might come into the picture. Having said that, if the 'offside' attacker is clearly and categorically the only attacking player with a realistic chance of getting to the ball, then an earlier flag becomes appropriate
 
The above posts are excellent

To add something new though, esp away from the elite, within reason, I have no issue with an AR flagging those through balls and the referee then reserving their ultimate right to accept the flag or not.
Majoroty of time, the referee will be best placed angle wise to judge potential collision.

Its often ignored that the AR flag is a signal to the referee that in their opinion, someone is in an offside position, and for whatever reason, deserves to be penalised for being so.

its ultimately up to the referee to accept or refuse the flag.

if you do at lower levels have the striker and gk wiping each other out and the striker being flagged offside, then generally the offside call has come too late.( obvious disclaimer we cant account for every senario)
 
Anubis said:
The above posts are excellent

To add something new though, esp away from the elite, within reason, I have no issue with an AR flagging those through balls and the referee then reserving their ultimate right to accept the flag or not.
Majoroty of time, the referee will be best placed angle wise to judge potential collision.

Its often ignored that the AR flag is a signal to the referee that in their opinion, someone is in an offside position, and for whatever reason, deserves to be penalised for being so.

its ultimately up to the referee to accept or refuse the flag.

if you do at lower levels have the striker and gk wiping each other out and the striker being flagged offside, then generally the offside call has come too late.( obvious disclaimer we cant account for every senario)
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For different reasons, this was tried in the first season of VAR in the PL - despite previously also being tried for one season in Germany and it being decided there that it's a bad idea.

It doesn't work, because if the referee does decide to not accept the flag, the AR is then hopelessly out of position for anything else that might happen later in the move. The referee is also less well positioned than the AR to decide if it's a close call, so in the VAR context at least, it's nonsensical to give that decision to them rather than the AR.
 
GraemeS said:
For different reasons, this was tried in the first season of VAR in the PL - despite previously also being tried for one season in Germany and it being decided there that it's a bad idea.

It doesn't work, because if the referee does decide to not accept the flag, the AR is then hopelessly out of position for anything else that might happen later in the move. The referee is also less well positioned than the AR to decide if it's a close call, so in the VAR context at least, it's nonsensical to give that decision to them rather than the AR.
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I'm struggling to correlate your response to the post here Graeme.

We're not talking about PL or VAR.

As you work more and more with NARs there will be occasions where you don't accept the flag of the AR for varying reasons such as it runs through to keeper, wrong player flagged, flagged in error as not seen a deliberate touch,.possibly others as well.

We've all done it, flagged to soon or incorrectly, and I hope have humbly accepted the flag not being accepted. It happens and we have to be ready for that to happen.

The flag does not stop the game, the whistle does and if the referee determines that the flag was incorrect the game continues and as AR you have to be ready for that to get back into position.
 
JamesL said:
I'm struggling to correlate your response to the post here Graeme.

We're not talking about PL or VAR.

As you work more and more with NARs there will be occasions where you don't accept the flag of the AR for varying reasons such as it runs through to keeper, wrong player flagged, flagged in error as not seen a deliberate touch,.possibly others as well.

We've all done it, flagged to soon or incorrectly, and I hope have humbly accepted the flag not being accepted. It happens and we have to be ready for that to happen.

The flag does not stop the game, the whistle does and if the referee determines that the flag was incorrect the game continues and as AR you have to be ready for that to get back into position.
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I did specify for different reasons. And agree there will be exceptional circumstances where the referee does need to "overrule" the flag. But Anubis says "I have no issue with an AR flagging those through balls and the referee then reserving their ultimate right to accept the flag or not".

You don't want to be introducing systems where the AR regularly being a mile out of position is the result of everything working as intended. If the AR flags too early and then has to scramble to recover that's one thing, correcting for mistakes will always be a case of everyone doing their best to cope.

But telling them to flag regardless even when they know it's not likely to be given and they'll potentially be needed to make another offside or in/out of play, or even a goal/no goal decision 40 yards further down the line is a step in the wrong direction. And the VAR example works well to show why moving towards a default situation where the AR flags regardless and it's then down to the referee to accept or not is a bad idea.
 
At levels with no VAR flagging early is accepted if there is zero chance of a different player to the one offside getting to the ball, and to prevent a striker on keeper clash. For the latter I would much rather my AR flags and lets me make the call rather than keeping it down and I then have to deal with the aftermath of an injured player.

And sometimes the referee does have to politely refuse an offside flag. I've had it a few times, ball played by defender being the most often but also a few that were just plain wrong. I learned the hard way not to blindly accept a flag when I blew to stop play as an attacker was running through on goal only to very quickly realise it was from a goal kick. That is a major hole to dig yourself out of, and whilst it was the ARs fault for signalling offside from a GK, I was equally to blame for not realising his mistake. And that was in a top of the table Isthmian Premier League game, I got stick for years going back to that club (and they were the beneficiaries of the error !!).
 
JamesL said:
I'm struggling to correlate your response to the post here Graeme.

We're not talking about PL or VAR.

As you work more and more with NARs there will be occasions where you don't accept the flag of the AR for varying reasons such as it runs through to keeper, wrong player flagged, flagged in error as not seen a deliberate touch,.possibly others as well.

We've all done it, flagged to soon or incorrectly, and I hope have humbly accepted the flag not being accepted. It happens and we have to be ready for that to happen.

The flag does not stop the game, the whistle does and if the referee determines that the flag was incorrect the game continues and as AR you have to be ready for that to get back into position.
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i have him on ignore

i can see thro the postings tho

my post was " esp away from the elite"

amazingly, this poster has omitted this part and focussed on,, the elite



talk about starting a fight in an empty house
 
RustyRef said:
At levels with no VAR flagging early is accepted if there is zero chance of a different player to the one offside getting to the ball, and to prevent a striker on keeper clash.
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indeed, it should be accepted *with* VAR if the OS is not ”close”—it’s diagram 4 in the guidance on OS at the back of the magic book.
 
Anubis said:
i have him on ignore

i can see thro the postings tho

my post was " esp away from the elite"

amazingly, this poster has omitted this part and focussed on,, the elite



talk about starting a fight in an empty house
Click to expand...
Talk about being miles away from what was actually written... If you're going to ignore me, either ignore me or click the button that shows you the post, randomly guessing at what I've posted is just weird!
 
Interesting points in here.

If a pass is played to an attacker in an OP and he's gone for it, before it being deliberately played by the defending player and then continuing to the attacker. Would that be flagged as offside?

Defensive players sometimes attempt to play the ball straight after the pass (i.e. attempting to intercept it with a header), but what if it's a long ball and the offensive player has already gone for it before that deliberate touch by the defender (i.e. 2 or 3 seconds after the pass has been played)? Is there a certain timeframe to flag an offside in?
 
The “early“ call is when the OSP player is almost certain to get the ball. It’s really about not wasting time waiting for the obvious to actually happen. (That’s why it says the player can be called for interfering with play, even though he hasn’t touched the ball yet. if a defender has an opportunity to get the ball before it reaches the OSP attacker, the R/AR have to wait for actual interference by the OSP attacker.
 
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