Liverpool FC Forum

[MilitiaRusher]

Not to suggest that the modern game is rife with corruption, but faulty or inaccurate offside decisions have very often been unaccounted for. How many times do you see a team robbed of progression into latter stages of say, the World Cup, thanks to daydreaming linesmen or the confusing rule book, only for authorities to escape with a mere apologetic statement? For many years, the offside rule alone has been the number one culprit in the escalation of countless controversial sporting issues, with the game’s largest figures still frankly dazed with costly decisions that has tainted the image of the beautiful game over the years. What has or can be done to prevent more controversy?

In what is originally a fairly understandable rule in the game of football, the offside rule has over the years complicated itself as a consequence of the evolution of the sport. In laymen’s terms, offside is defined as an infraction in which an offensive player does not have at least one defensive outfield player between himself and the goal line when the ball is played to him by another offensive player. Such a rule was essentially implemented to discourage offensive players from opposition goal tending, which normally results in goals scored without any effort or running.

So one might think how on earth could disputes be boiled from such a simple rule on surface? Apart from the obvious factor of refereeing mismanagement, the ambiguity of the offside rule has been brought into question in many practical scenarios. How is one ‘officially’ judged offside? When one has made contact with the ball? Or when one is adjudged to be ‘interfering with play’? The truth is, no one is exactly sure. Till now, no one has summoned enough might to come forward to define what exactly is ‘interference with play’. One can stand in an offside position, make a move towards the ball, only to pull off in the eleventh hour, deceiving defenders along the way. This then allows an onside player to make it clean through with the ball, creating a straightforward goal scoring chance. And it will very much depend on who the referee is, or the mood he’s in (take your pick), whether such play is an infringement of the rules.

There are in fact other practical scenarios that can bring the offside rule into question. The ball can be played to an offside player, only adjudged to be onside as the ball took a nasty deflection off a defensive player along the way. The opposing defenders will then take the play in a different approach, possibly stopping in their tracks thinking for a split second that the play has gone offside. Such was the significance of the situation that it denied the South Koreans a potential opportunity to reach the last 16 of the recent World Cup, benefiting the Swiss. What was worse, the linesman originally raised his flag (encouraging the Koreans to stop), only for the referee to decide otherwise. Such conflicting standards and benchmarks between the same set of referees can only bring about more disputes in the modern game.

Of course, poor decision making and mismanagement in the refereeing sector does play a big part in giving the offside rule such infamy. From a linesman’s point of view, it is indeed very difficult to keep up with the game at the highest level, running up and down the length of a standard football pitch for 90 minutes, almost running more than certain players themselves. It also takes perfect vision to adjudge certain decisions and blockages here and there may lead to misjudgment. In most scenarios, the linesman will only have a split-second to make up his mind, and sometimes, such is the tiniest of infringement that the linesman is never able to make a conclusive judgment. Using the “human beings are not robots” reasoning, referees claim that its wholly inevitable that one or two of such refereeing mistakes arise from each game but does this make it totally excusable and unavoidable? Some suggests that using modern technology such as video replays is the way to mitigate the ongoing issue but unfortunately, such implementation will also sacrifice the tempo of the game. So with this ruled out, what other actions have authorities taken? Nothing, absolutely nothing, other then seemingly overprotecting substandard officials who are only capable of faulty decisions. That said, referees nowadays also tend to succumb to fans’ influence a lot more than usual, where away teams always seem to have harsh offside decisions ruled against them.

If authorities do not act soon, the blemished image of the modern game will soon become irreversible. In truth, it is not only the offside rule that has upset the impression of the game but various unsporting play from modern players has also started to take its toll. Racial slurs and consequent violent reactions have also made their way to top sporting headlines, as seen from the Zidane-Materazzi headbutt ordeal in the 2006 World Cup Final. Refine the rules and standardize the methods of refereeing across the globe. Offer less protection to fault-ridden officials. It is time to step up and make themselves count. It is time to transform the game back to what we used to always enjoy, the beautiful game of football.

[dawson99]

Who saw the reading goal against us tuesday... how thefeck the two players who were physically touching our keeper as a shot went in were deemed to be not interfering with play is absolutely beyond me. the rules are a joke sometimes

[account deleted by request]

In laymen’s terms, offside is defined as an infraction in which an offensive player does not have at least one defensive outfield player between himself and the goal line when the ball is played to him by another offensive player

I don't want to be pedantic about a very good post but this is wrong mate. Its any 2 players (inc the goalkeeper or not) Ie against Reading when our goalkeeper tried to collect the ball and missed, we had a player on the line but the three reading players were still in an offside position because there wern't 2 of our players between them and the goal line and the ball was played forward.

[Sabre]

Remind me not to invite to watch a football game in Spain mate. If you feel that way about the off side rule, heh, you'd get a heart attack in Spain, as it's a joke how some linesmen act.

Excellent post.

I'm not sure whether it's that ambiguous the off side rule, in the positional offsides like the one you described, there's an intention to deceive and thus he's intervening in the play, it's an off side. But it is very difficult to interpret. The linesman must be always at the same level of the last defender, and they must keep an eye on that, the linesman must also check when the passer touches the ball, and they have to do all that at the same time, to make things worse, the linesman must decide whether the off side of a player is positional or real. It's not easy, especially in those plays in which the defence advance the line suddenly, checking at the same time the passer and the last defender? difficult.

It's not easy neither to implement a computerised system for offsides. In computer games is easier because the computer knows wheter you pressed the pass or shoot button, but a computer cannot tell wheter something is a shoot, or a pass, and would struggle to determine what's positional offside. Cameras would help IMHO.

The big problem is that there are no standards. FIFA says one year, "in case of doubt, let the play continue". In Spain the refs do what they want normally favouring Real Madrid and Barcelona. It's classic to see in Spain a linesman rising the flag in the Bernabeu 10 SECONDS after the action. Believe it or not. When you're a Spanish fan, you learn to check the linesman first and the ref later before celebrating a goal, until then, they can disallow it.

[The Ace1983]

I don't understand why we can't have four linesmen (sorry, referee's assistants. typical. More worried about how they're addressed than the job they do) and a system which would be based on the certainty of at least three individuals. We know that the referee has a vibrating watch, so why not use it properly. Say you have two linesman concerned with each half, plus a fourth official watching the game on a screen. Why not have three levels of vibration in the watch, or three seperate vibrations if all three signal a decision? Hang on, getting slightly ahead of myself here. Say we have the three distinct levels of vibration and three men watching for offisides (two assistants and a fourth official)

Vibration 1 - 1 of 3 officials has seen an infringement. Use your judgement.
Vibration 2 - 2 of 3 officials have seen an infringement. Talk to them, use your judgement, coupled with their testamony.
Vibration 3 - 3 of 3 officials have seen an infringement. This is a certain infringement, no argument.

Ok, the bugs might have to worked out and a bit of simplification would be good but the basic idea of four linesmen, two on each side and two on each half (if that makes sense) would get rid of a lot of silly decisions. Of course, until we get robot linesmen, we'll never have it perfect, but don't worry, i'm working on a prototype "Referee's Cyborg Assistant". The only problem is, it starts killing fans if they sing nasty songs about it and it tends to missile the players who are offside. I'll keep at it  though...