Offside Interfering - Redundant?

[Nashvillian]

On February 26, the IFAB Meeting decided on clarifications to Law 11.
"Interfering with an opponent means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision or movements or making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee, deceives or distracts an opponent."

Isn't that called "impeding" (holding, if contact is actually made) or even "unsporting behavior"? In other words, isn't the offside law simply cluttered by including this wording since all of the "interfering with an opponent" actions are covered elsewhere in the Laws?

Is it redundant or is it necessary as a reminder to the referees?

[Wreave]

My take: An onside player may be between a defender and the ball/play, without impeding. Generally, a player has the right to the ground on which he stands. It's when you move into someone's path that the action becomes impeding.

So, if a defender wants to go from point A to point B, and an attacker is on the direct line from point A to point B, the defender has to go around the attacker. They can't go up to them and stop and claim the attacker was impeding them. Likewise, as the the defender runs around him, the attacker can't step into the path of the defender - that's impeding.

However, if a defender wants to go from point A to point B, and an *offside-positioned* attacker is on the direct line, and the defender has to go around the offside-positioned attacker to get to where they need to go, the offside-positioned player has just interfered with play, prevented the defender from playing the ball, etc., and should be whistled for offside, even if his action was *not* impeding.

[Nashvillian]

That's very good. I can see that difference.

The act of a defender having to go around a player in order to play the ball would obviously slow the defender down and perhaps cause him to arrive too late. Anywhere else on the field, this is just a part of the game and posititioning, but would not be impeding.

But if the player the defender has to go around is in an offside position, the attacking team certainly "gains an advantage" by having a player where he should not be.

Good example.

[NHRef]

It also clears up confusion about "playing" the ball. For example, if a player is in an offside position, and the ball comes through, can he then shield off a defender until an onside player can get there? According to the above clarification, nope, he'd then be offside. Prior to this, some believe that as long as he didn't touch the ball, he wasn't "playing" the ball so wasn't involved in the play, so couldn't be called offside.

[Gary V]

There's also the "in the line of vision" aspect of offside that doesn't apply to impeding.

Also, "gaining an advantage" has been re-defined quite strictly to mean retrieving a rebound. Interfering with an opponent isn't covered by that.

FIFA doesn't even include "immediately capitalizing on a mistake of the opponent" as found in Advice to Referees. Maybe they consider all mistakes to arise from rebounds, or occur because of interference of the offside attacker?

[MidwestRef]

I would have to say that the example of "screening" the goalkeeper as an offensive player would do in ice hockey is also a good example of "interfering with play" or "seeking to gain an advantage", is it not? If a player in an offside position is clearly screening the keeper, I believe that play should also be whistled as offside.

However, a referee probably needs to be 100% sure that such screening has occurred, especially if the player is some distance from the keeper.

The play I'm thinking of is one in a Dallas Burn MLS game last year when the referee crew waved off a Dallas goal because of a "screening" situation.