A&H

Offside

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RefereeM

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One of the things I struggle with is trying to work out offside after a goalmouth scramble. it's easier when it's a ball over the top but when the ball is being kicked back and forth with multiple bodies in the box I am trying to keep an eye on fouls, pushes, etc - working out offside is harder for me.
Can anyone provide any tips for dealing with this please?
 
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I try to leave that to my AR (CAR in my case), unless it's really obvious.
 
RefereeM said:
One of the things I struggle with is trying to work out offside after a goalmouth scramble. it's easier when it's a ball over the top but when the ball is being kicked back and forth with multiple bodies in the box I am trying to keep an eye on fouls, pushes, etc - working out offside is harder for me.
Can anyone provide any tips for dealing with this please?
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This post makes me feel like you're from a county that recommends you do your own offsides rather than trusting the club AR at grassroots?
 
Agee - is this question being asked form the position of an AR, as a centre ref who's looking to help their ARs make the call or as a centre ref who has to call offsides on their own? Advice is different depending on the context I think.
 
It’s from my perspective as a ref with no assistants. I don’t use club assistants in my league (generally accepted). It’s when it’s a really fast paced goalmouth scramble that I struggle.
 
RefereeM said:
It’s from my perspective as a ref with no assistants. I don’t use club assistants in my league (generally accepted). It’s when it’s a really fast paced goalmouth scramble that I struggle.
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All I could suggest as somebody who's never done a game with no AR of any sort is that it would be bloody hard to tell and if you're not extremely confident that a player is offside then consider them onside.
 
At the coin toss, I'd just tell the captains to play to the whistle, that you will call offsides as best you can with the angle you have at the time, and you will deal with any dissent regarding decisions as you need to. And to work with you to deal with the players re dissent.

You've got no chance of calling offsides in the situation you've described, unless it's blatantly obvious.
 
RefereeM said:
One of the things I struggle with is trying to work out offside after a goalmouth scramble. it's easier when it's a ball over the top but when the ball is being kicked back and forth with multiple bodies in the box I am trying to keep an eye on fouls, pushes, etc - working out offside is harder for me.
Can anyone provide any tips for dealing with this please?
Click to expand...
Coming from a part of the country in which we can't have CAR's give offside, the answer is simple; offside judgements are difficult and nigh on impossible in the circumstances you mention.

A general rule to try and judge offsides on my own I was given when I first started was to run in figures of 8. But that of course doesn't help with the example you gave. For that, again, it's hard to give advice. If the game is played on a 4G pitch, as many games up my way are these days, you can try and use the lines as an aid (they're normally setup for other sports).

But what I would say is...... you won't be alone in this. If CAR's can't assist with offsides, you can only do what you can do. Or to put it a better way; you can only control the controllables. Don't worry about it too much. I'd much rather miss someone being half a yard offside than I would a foul or handball that leads to a goal
 
Runner-Ref said:
Coming from a part of the country in which we can't have CAR's give offside, the answer is simple; offside judgements are difficult and nigh on impossible in the circumstances you mention.
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Do you know the reasoning behind the CARs not being able to give offsides?
 
DazN said:
Do you know the reasoning behind the CARs not being able to give offsides?
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They've never ever been able to give them here, or at least during my time. I guess it's because it can lead to as many issues as it can resolve
 
Where I am there’s no CARs. So below the 6th tier mens and 4th youth, you are on your own.

7th tier mens can be tough. There are essentially two successful approaches I have seen.

One way, stay central, far from play and take decisions at distance - and adopt traditional positions at corners. Basically this is a low risk approach, minimal use of the diagonal. This works for some people. Needs geometric judgement of offside. Can look a bit ”centre circle” and some calls will be reactive guesses.

The other way is to use the diagonal to the extreme, take up wider positions to see the offside line. This is high risk, involves a lot more movement. Vary positions at corners, even use the goal line. This only works if you can run and keep up with or outrun the players. You can make great credible offside calls. But you need to be really alert to breakaways and adapt if the players are better than expected!

I do the later. But it’s in a league where I played for years, I can anticipate the risks and I can run.

Of course, YMMV.
 
In the US CARs are also not permitted to help with OS. Given how hard it is for newly trained refs to do OS correctly, this makes sense to me. But it is also true that we use ARs in a far higher percentage of games that are played than in the UK.
 
I wouldn’t worry about being 100% right about these every time. Players will appeal whether it’s offside or not, most players realise though that you can’t be in line for these scenarios. If a goal is scored during a goal mouth scramble, it’s either a fluke, great goal or poor defending. It’s not because you’ve missed an offside. Just get as close as you can and call it if you’re certain
 
RefereeM said:
It’s from my perspective as a ref with no assistants. I don’t use club assistants in my league (generally accepted). It’s when it’s a really fast paced goalmouth scramble that I struggle.
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In that case, the answer is: guess, signal confidently and try to get the game restarted as fast as possible so that players start thinking about something else. There's not much else you can do really.
 
DazN said:
Do you know the reasoning behind the CARs not being able to give offsides?
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Don't know for certain for any given part of the country but I would say perm any one from 3:

1. They most likely don't know the offside law in the first place.

2. They're usually not in line with the play anyway.

3. There's a high likelihood that they're biased.
 
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