The Rules of Soccer: Offside--A Primer for Coaches, Fans, and Players

Penalty kicks aside, soccer's offside rule may produce more frustration for fans and players alike than all the other rules combined. But its purpose is simple, and taking a few moments to understand it may do more to reduce a soccer fan's blood pressure than anything short of bypass surgery.

Of course, understanding won't change a single call on the field. But before screaming at the referee, it might help to understand what all the fuss is really about.

The Purpose of the Offside Rule
Perception of Coaches, Fans, and Players: The Main Purpose of the Offside Rule is to give the officials an excuse to take away any goal our team scores.

A Secondary Purpose of the rule is to let the officials give the other team a breakaway, and let them score whenever they pass the ball behind our defenders.

Reality Check: Officials do not like to disallow goals. They realize how hard each team works for any goal it scores, and will only disallow a goal when a team scores by exploiting a violation of the rules. In addition, the Referee does not really care which team wins.

The Real Reason for the Offside Rule
The purpose of the Offside Rule is the same in Soccer as it is in hockey -- to prevent "cherry-picking" by a player who is camps in front of the other team's goal. Without the Offside Rule, Soccer would be a large field game of ping pong, filled with long kicks and alternating mad scrambles from one end of the field to the other. By preventing any "offside" player from participating in the game, the rule puts a premium on dribbling and passing, rather than long kicks. This promotes teamwork, encouragin quick switching from one side of the field to the other and compressing the action to a smaller area of the field. The end result is that all the players stay closer to the action, and everyone has a better chance of participating in the game.

The Offside Rule: A player in an offside position is only penalized if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by interfering with play, or interfering with an opponent, or gaining an advantage by being in that position.

"Offside Position"
Perception of Coaches, Fans, and Players: A player is "Offside" whenever he gets past our defenders. The officials will not notice this, however, unless we bring it to their attention by screaming at them.

Reality Check: The rule is a bit more complicated than this...but there is at least one official watching the offside line at any given time. However, occasionally the Referee's attention is on the contest for the ball, instead of the official watching the offside line. This sometimes results in a late whistle.</blockquote></blockquote>

The "Offside Position":
Law 11 states that a player is in an "offside position" whenever "he is nearer to his opponent's goal than both the ball and the second last opponent," unless "he is in his own half of the field of play." Put more simply:

-- Nobody is "offside" in his own half of the field.

-- Nobody is "offside" if even with, or behind the ball.

-- Nobody is "offside" if even with, or behind two or more opponents.

There are also three major exceptions to the offside rule. Players receiving a ball directly from a throw-in, a corner kick, or a goal kick, cannot be "offside." So, if Sally receives the ball directly from her teammate's throw-in, it doesn't matter if she is in an offside position. The fact that it was a throw-in means that the play was not offside. But if she flicks the ball along to Jane, who is even further downfield than Sally was, Jane can be offside, since she got the ball from Sally, rather than from the throw-in. The same holds true for corner kicks and goal kicks, as well. If the ball comes directly from the restart, the play is not offside, but once the first player receives the ball, the "offside" rule comes back into play.

"Involved in Active Play"
Perception of Coaches, Fans, and Players: Referees use the phrase "not involved in the play" to avoid admitting they missed an offside call. If the players on the other team were not "involved in active play," they would not be on the field, they would be on the sidelines.

Reality Check: A good referee tries to stop the game only when necessary -- usually, only for a serious injury, or when one team would otherwise gain an advantage by a violation of the rules.

Contrary to popular belief, it does not violate the rules merely for someone to be in an offside position. The violation comes only when an "offside" player participates in the play. So the referee -- or the assistant referee on the sidelines -- who lets play continue despite the fact that everyone can see someone well beyond the offside line is probably not missing anything. Rather, they are probably applying the rule correctly, letting play continue until the player in the "offside position" becomes "offside" by getting involved in the play.

"Involved in Active Play"
There are three -- and only three -- situations where someone in an offside position is penalized for being "offside." All of them require participating in play from an offside position -- or, in the wording of the rule, becoming "involved in active play"in one of three ways:

-- Interfering with play

-- Interfering with an opponent, or

-- Gaining an advantage by being in an offside position.

The easiest example of "offside" is when an offside player receives a pass from a teammate. He is directly "interfering with play" because he got the ball. Other examples apply this same logic, but seek to spare the players a few steps, or the coaches and fans a few heart attacks. So, if one or more attackers is trapped offside but runs to play the ball, the play will be "offside." On the other hand, if an offside player removes himself from the play -- pulling up, for example, in order to let an onside teammate collect the ball -- alert officials will let play continue. And if the ball is going directly to the keeper, the officials will usually let the players keep playing.

While it is not an offense to be in an offside position, a player who never touches the ball may still affect play. The offside player who runs between an opponent and the ball, for example -- or one who screens the goalkeeper from a shot, or interferes with the keeper's ability to jump for, or collect the ball -- violates the rule by participating in the play. This sort of participation does not come from touching the ball, but from interfering with an opponent's chance to play the ball. Once the assistant referee sees the participation, the offside flag will go up. But, if the offside player pulls up, steps to the side, or clearly indicates that he is removing himself from the moment's active play, the alert official will allow play to continue.

Among the trickiest things to spot -- either as a spectator or an official -- is the player who uses an offside position to gain an unfair advantage. This does not mean that the player is "gaining an advantage" by avoiding some extra running on a hot day, however. Instead, it means that the player is taking advantage of his positioning to exploit a lucky deflection, or a defensive mistake. So, if an offside player is standing to the side of the goal when his teammate takes a shot -- but doesn't otherwise interfere with play or inhibit the keeper's chance to make the save -- then he is not offside and the officials will count the goal. But if the ball rebounds, either from the keeper or the goalpost, and the offside player bangs the rebound home -- the play is offside, and the goal won't count, because the player is now gaining an advantage from the offside position.

"The Moment the Ball is Played...."
Perception of Coaches, Fans, and Players: Referees never get the offside call right, and have a hard time making up their minds. That's why their flags are often late. And that's why they sometimes raise the offside flag even when the players are clearly onside.

Reality Check The Offside rule is the source of more controversy than any other rule in soccer -- and for good reason: it's pretty complicated. In addition, there are at least two critical moments of judgment in every offside call, or no-call. The second of these, the moment of participation, may be easy to see: that's usually where the ball lands and the players are playing, and that's where everybody is looking. But the first "moment of truth" is usually away from everyone's attention, because what determines the "offside position" is the relative position of each player at the moment the ball is struck.

"The moment the ball touches, or is played, by a teammate...."
Players touch the ball a lot during a soccer game, often in very rapid succession. And soccer being a fluid game, on a good team each player is constantly in motion. This means that the first moment of judgment -- determining whether any players are in an offside position -- is constantly changing, and the relative position of the players will often be very different from one moment to the next. Yet officials have to keep it all straight, and have a heartbeat to take a mental snapshot of the players' positioning at a frozen moment in time -- the moment the ball is played by a member of one team -- in order to judge if an offside member of that team later moves to play the ball, interferes with an opponent, or gains an advantage from being offside. From the official's perspective, the game is an endless series of these snapshots, because each new touch of the ball redetermines the offside line.

Part of the difficulty in this is simple physics. Imagine that you are watching cars pass one another on the highway. It may seem easy to tell when one car is passing another in the two northbound lanes of traffic; but try telling the precise moment that a car traveling north is exactly even with a car traveling south. Now, combine this with the need make your decision at the precise moment that some other northbound car flashes its brights, and you get a pretty good idea of what the officials have to do, dozens of times in every game. If the cars are even, or the northbound car has not quite passed the one heading south at the moment the third car flashes its brights, the play is onside; if the northbound car has nosed ahead of the southbound car, the play is offside. Now, widen the highway to twenty lanes...increase the number of cars to twenty-two...set them all moving in different directions and at varying speeds...tell the assistant referee to stay even with the "next to last car"...and if you can keep track of it all, you're doing what the referees are doing every moment of the game. Just remember -- the official has to make each decision in a heartbeat.

But what really seems to confuse everyone is more a matter of psychology and perception. Suppose everyone is watching the car with the lights. When its brights flash, everyone turns to see the northbound car racing ahead, and by the time they turn their heads, it's well past the southbound car, racing north as fast as the speed limit allows. In a soccer game, substitute players for cars, and the ball for the lights, and whichever way the call goes, this is the moment that half the crowd will often start screaming at the officials. In fact, nobody but the assistant referee has any idea what the call should be, because nobody, except the one, lonely official, was watching the right players at the critical moment.

The important thing to remember is that the moment of judging "offside position" is different than the moment of judging participation. And this is true whichever direction the players are moving. An offside player who comes back onside to receive the ball is still offside; to avoid the call, he cannot participate until another teammate touches the ball, or his opponents manage to collect it. On the other hand, a player who is onside will remain onside, no matter how far she runs to retrieve it, and no matter where the other team's players move in the meantime. So if Judy is onside when Stacey kicks the ball forward, it doesn't matter if she's twenty yards behind the defense when she collects the ball. The play will be onside...because she was onside at the moment her teammate passed the ball. And if Judy is onside...but Mary is offside...then an alert official will wait to see which one of them moves after the ball -- because if Mary takes herself out of the play, and allows Judy to collect it, then play can continue because there is no offside violation.

Soccer Officials and Offside
The offside rule has been part of Soccer for a long time, and has generated arguments and controversies since its inception. But its purpose is simple: to prevent "cherry-picking." And since it is an important part of the game, the match officials will enforce the rule to the best of their ability. So when the officials rule a play offside -- letting play continue, because they saw no infraction -- they are not doing it out of spite, or to hurt one team or the other. They are doing so regardless of which team it hurts or benefits, simply because the rules require it.

Officials have a difficult and sometimes thankless job. They must enforce the rules, even if nobody else understands them, to make sure the players have a fair contest of skill. But the officials are there because they have no interest in the outcome, only a deep respect for the sport, and a willingness to run about the field, occasionally enduring unkind or uninformed remarks so that others can play a game they all love.

Knowing the rules can help coaches, players, and spectators understand the decisions the officials hand down during the match, as they try to keep the game fair, safe, and enjoyable for everybody. And occasionally, understanding the rules may spare everyone some needless grief, when a call goes against your favorite team.

About the Author

Jeffrey Caminsky, a veteran public prosecutor in Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His book on soccer officiating, The Referee's Survival Guide, is published by New Alexandria Press, www.newalexandriapress.com.