Let me rephrase: The rule should be changed so that Kuyt's position is onside. I don't have any stats but I'll be willing to say that the calls on players being just barely onside are probably called correctly about 50% of the times and it's really a sad thing. I think that if the rule changed to be that the player is onside so that as long as some part of the his body is in line with the last defender, the calls would be more correct more often because it's easier to judge. The fact is that Kuyt was leaning into an offside position. Not only does this change help promote attacking football but more importantly it makes it easier for the line judge to keep his flag down. I think refs err too often on the side of caution...and seeing the attacker have any appearance of being past, leaning past or just heading past the last defender under the current rule just makes it too tempting to raise the flag. With this subtle rule change it's easier for the line judge to truly look for day line between the attacker and defender, IOW, the attacker must be COMPLETELY in front of the last defender. I think it's good step toward a better game more consistent officiating.
The official rule is that when in doubt, the referee should give the advantage to the attacking side. In reality however it's pretty much the other way round.
The problem with the offside rule is that it was originally designed to discourage "cherry-picking" and prevent the attacking player from gaining an unfair advantage. The way the rule is enforced however, is so strict that it does not take the original intent into account at all. Kuyt was offside in the sense that he was slightly ahead of his defender. I don't know if you can say however, that having his shoulder a foot ahead gave him an unfair advantage.
No he wasn't. The rule states that if any part of the body which can score a goal is beyond the last man then it is offside. Kuyt's head was clearly beyond the last man. He was offside.
As a referee, I can state from personal experience that this would not be easier to judge. When you are in line with the last defender, it is far easier to see if any part of the attacker is poking out in front than it is to try and work out if there's any miniscule part of the bodies of two players overlapping. It's always going to be a tough call because play moves quickly and attackers push the envelope as far as it can, and yeah, I agree that the number of incorrect offside calls on breakaways is cause for concern. This change wouldn't improve the accuracy though.
with calls that close I doubt there's any judgement of individual bodyparts being ahead of defender. He looked across as the pass was made and thought him offside. If you need a slow motion replay to tell a player was onside or offside then you don't have much of a right to complain about a linesman getting it wrong. My only feeling is that linesman still err on the side of caution and flag when they aren't sure, when they are meant to do the opposite. ps the words onside and offside do not end in an "s". I don't know why, but reading them as plurals is like fingernails scraping down a blackboard.
I think that only makes sense, to be honest. Teams play the offside trap, not the onside trap. Giving an incorrect onside can affect the game much more, since its a clear run on goal for the attacker which is precisely what the offside trap is supposed to prevent.
This is very true counts for players too (Shay Given and his alterego Shay givens, being a prime example).
for whatever reason though, officials get much more criticism for allowing an offside goal than disallowing an onside one. I think it makes a lot of linesmen flag "to be on the safe side".
I will back up what Caesar said, the current rule of any playable body part, actually makes it easier. When it was changed I at first didn't like it thinking it would be harder, but as he says, if you are properly positioned all you need to do it look for a body part, other than an arm/hand, past the defensive line. it actually makes it easier in most cases. Changing to any part keeping you onside would be harder because now you have to quickly find the furthest back body part, which is not "natural" to look for. No matter what the "line" is, there will be close calls that people disagree with.
I think that's more of the same though - if you allow an onside goal it often means you've allowed a player a clean run on goal when the defense was pushing up to prevent it. One of those moments where you say "surely he was offside, right?". It changes the game so drastically, that's probably why the refs are conservative. I can't say I blame them. So long as the calls aren't too blatant, I'm OK with the defender getting the benefit of the doubt.
Same problem (if it is a problem) exists in the penalty box. There I would say the defender gets an even bigger benefit of the doubt. An attacking player breathes on a defender and its a foul.
When I first heard the idea of "daylight between defender and the attacker", I thought that was a good idea. Then recently I was an AR, and the attacker had neatly shielded the defender on his hip so that there was no daylight between them. The attacker definitely gained an advantage, and easily got to a through ball before the defender. Fortunately for the defense, I flagged based on the current definition of offside.
Well, I've never been a linesman but I can't see how it can be harder to judge "daylight" rather than the current rule. I would think it would be easier to need to see the entire body beyond the last defender. It's kind of like the ball needing to go completely over the line to be out of bounds rather than on the line. Like I said, there are two motives here. One is to make the call clearer for the linesman...which I think this rule change would do. the other motive is to encourage more attacking and scoring.