Monday, July 22, 2013

Just to add a little more confusion to the offside rule

Was he in line when the ball was played?

Goal line technology may be on people's minds, but debate on the offside rule rages on

With some new changes to the offside rules coming in this season, there could be even more confusion (and hence more heated debates among geezers). FIFA has slightly changed the wording of the 'Interfering' section of Law 11, as well as the 'Gaining an Advantage' section.

I used to think that people were just not making any effort to understand what is a relatively simple rule, but now I'm a little perplexed myself. Is the player coming back from an offside position? Are they interfering? Is there daylight? Was his left ankle offside when the ball was played?

Here's FIFA's PDF on the definition of offside.

Gone are the days of sitting around with the ketchup bottle, salt shaker and HP sauce - no one really knows the rules anymore, including referees. It's been made far too complicated and I think it's the inconsistency of the decisions that infuriates players, managers and fans. It's easy to tell when Pippo Inzaghi is offside (the answer is 'always'), but how the assistant referees (linesmen) can make that call in a split second is beyond me.



1 comment:

  1. I'm confused. So, you can come back, to be onside, but can't be offside before the ball is on the other side of the player's left ankle? J/K just adding to the confusion, since Inzhagi is the best example of the offside rule.

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