A little history about Offside

On March 25, Alfred Kleinaitis sent out a memo about the first goal scored in the MLS season on March 19 in the game between New York Red Bulls and Seattle Sounders in the northwest.  When I saw the clip of the goal, and read the explanation of why the offside player should not be penalized for infringing Law 11, I first smiled, then sighed in satisfaction as I knew that what I had been attempting since the mid-1970s had finally come to pass: calling offside as it should be called (for the good of the game).  First, a little history.

I became an instructor after taking a CONCACAF Instructors' course in Canada in 1972 or thereabouts, taught by Ken Aston of FIFA.  We were the first batch of instructors organized by Eddie Pearson to start teaching across the country, and that batch contained some familiar names: Baldwin, Smith, Byron, Sumpter, Bratsis, D'Ippolito, Johnson, Avis and others whose names I don't have at hand at the moment.

Before the course I had prepared a presentation on law 11 in which I gave my views on what was "interfering with play".  At that time the law included the phrase that a player in an offside position could be penalized if the referee judged he was "seeking to gain an advantage" from being offside.  The word "seeking" caused all kinds of problems in explaining the law to neophytes, many of whom felt that the mere presence on the field meant that the player was indeed seeking to gain an advantage.

All over the country players had to put up with ridiculous calls on offside because of the lack of understanding on the part of referees interpreting "interfering with play" and "seeking to gain an advantage".  Players who took a corner-kick would get penalized if a shot was taken and the kicker hadn't run back "onside" after crossing the ball.  A player on the left wing would get called when a pass went down the right, and so on.  Offside position was the offside infraction. 

The nascent NISOA of the mid-seventies had its own concept of the laws and how they should be interpreted, and the organization became positively reactionary in arguing against what I (and many other instructors) were teaching.  At the professional level, Eddie Pearson asked me to give a presentation at a pre-season clinic in Dallas, and we started to make some headway there, but even then, some of the assessors objected to this "liberal" interpretation of offside.

Much later, in the late eighties when I became national director of referee instruction, I took the opportunity to mandate what would be taught about law 11.  At the first two or three national testing sessions, I made sure that every national candidate and every national referee got the message about the meaning of offside.  And I made a set of slides that showed properly-scaled, realistic situations like

this one, and sent them out to all the state directors of instruction to use in teaching offside at all levels.  A.M. Reginato, member of the FIFA Referees' committee (and father of Adolfo Reginato of Minnesota), came to one of the national testing sessions in Colorado Springs and personally approved of the way we were teaching offside.  That was all we needed to continue to push our interpretation and our efforts to standardize things across the country.

Now to the point of giving this history.  Evidently by 1990 or 1991 FIFA was also trying to standardize the interpretation of law 11 worldwide, and when Tom "Tiny" Wharton of the FIFA Referees' committee came to our national testing the following year and saw what we were doing with all our nationals, he pulled me aside and asked me a question.  "If you could change one law, what would it be?"  I didn't hesitate.  "I would change the phrase in law 11 'seeking to gain an advantage' to 'gains an advantage' so that referees would not have an excuse for calling every offside position as an infraction."  He simply nodded.

I am sure that my answer was not the reason for for happened by the time the 1994 World Cup came to the U.S., and all the referees were instructed to call law 11 as we do today, but it does show that our instruction of referees about offside is and has been on a par with most other countries, and ahead of many others.

That is some of the historical background to the excellent memorandum that Alfred sent out.  Even now however, years after we got it sorted out in this country, you will find on some chat sites on the net people who don't accept it. 

I'm going out for a bike-ride now, and when I get back I will write about why there appears to be a conflict between what the federation says and what FIFA says about offside and how we judge interfering with play.

(To set your mind at rest (I don't want you on tenterhooks all afternoon), I will tell you that there is no difference of opinion.)

Comments

[Ted]

I am taking license to tweak your example from above. I had a similar game situation as the model in the picture, with an exception of instead of the cross being taken by the head into the near post, the cross was a shot to the far post where the player in the offside position decided to attempt to kick the ball but failed to reach it.

I was not as 'deep' as the referee in the picture but I was inside the penalty area. The assistant raised his flag and I decided the attempt put the player firmly in the area of being involved with active play. So we gave the indirect free-kick.

What would you have done?

[Since he neither interfered with an opponent, nor gained any advantage I would have let it go. RE]

[Dennis Wickham]

Why do we still have "gain an advantage" as an element for Law 11?

If a player is (1) in an offside position, and (2) touches the ball, then the player has interfered with play.

[Yes. RE]

It appears that "gained an advantage" has the same two elements and adds a third, the deflection.

[And the rebound from the post. RE]

So long as deflection doesn't change offside position, "interfering with an opponent" and "gaining an advantage" seem to cover the same situation.

[But gaining an advantage does not necessarily involve interfering with an opponent, but does involve interfering with play. RE]

For the math nerds:

If A = B + C
and
If A = B + C + D,
Then, D = 0.

[r mccain]

Bob _ do you remember that awful experiment with the offside line painted _ was it 30 meters?

[Yes, I remember it. It was 35 yards, and brings to mind the phrase "Law of unintended consequences" we use in scientific experimentation. Shortening the offside area widened (or deepened) the midfield area. That meant that midfielders had to play in a larger area than is normal for them in "real" soccer. Therefore American midfielders for a time never had to play in that tight, tight midfield space, so never had to develop the control-skills and quick thinking of other nation's players. It was an unintended consequence of a bad experiment. The results of our national team at that time reflect that. RE]

[Dennis Wickham]

My original post contained a typo. (Sorry.) I meant to say:

So long as a deflection or rebound doesn't change offside position, "interfered with play" and "gained an advantage" seem to cover the same situation.

Is there ever a situation in which one would judge "gained an advantage" but not "interfered with play?"

[Yes, if the player obstructed the view of the goalkeeper at a shot. He would have gained an advantage (and interfered with an opponent), but because he did not play the ball, he would not have interfered with play. It's a bit pedantic, but that's the way they are defining it nowadays. Cheers, Bob.]

[Gary Voshol]

To follow up on Dennis's points, it seems that "gaining an advantage" is always a subset of "interferes with play" or "interferes with an opponent". A Venn diagram would have two distinct circles labeled interfering with play/opponent respectively. Inside those circles would be two smaller circles, each labeled gaining an advantage.

Is there any circumstance where gains an advantage covers unique territory not covered by either interferes situation?