"Modify offside to make it simpler" (FIFA.com) 28 Jul 2004 By Joseph S. Blatter http://www.fifa.com/en/history/index/0,1284,102303,00.html?articleid=102303 -------------------------------------------------------------------- More doublespeak to create more confusion.
How can officials determine offside effectively if they have to do it by including the decision the factor that, in the words of his bladderness, "the offside rule should only apply to the player who actually receives the ball"? This is not hockey where the puck moves short distances at very quick speed and the space is limited. In terms of offside, the linesman (and the players)has a hard enough time determining whether the potentially offside player was past the last outfielder on the defending team at the time the pass is made. As some observers have noted, 90% of the time that alone is physically impossible to observe completely, and then it has to be done by extraordinary peripheral vision. That is more of an art than a scientific observation, and with the other duties of the churning-legged linesmen and referee, that should be the limit of their duties (and the duties of the players on the field who have to determine what the linesmen and the referees see) vis a vis determining offside. If the suggestion is that the referee should overule the linesman by determining some sort of subjective "active/passive" situation, that is patent nonsense. As old-timers like to say, off-side is offside, and the attackers always gain some advantage in situations where it is not enforced. Off-side is not a "penalty", to use Baltter's words, it is a part of the the play of the game as much as corner-kicks or as when-is-a-goal-a-goal (when it crosses the line). I can perhaps live with a clear subrule that the referee can overule the offside in clear circumstances where the offending attacker has gone back onside before the postion of the ball has reached the area of the offence is there is no strategic advantage (to avoid uneccesary stoppage of play, much like the advantage rule after fouls), but that has to be clearly spelled out, and a clear signal from the referee to all players must be given. But even then, I think we are flirting with the devil. Obviously, it is better if the linesman flags immediate offside and the referree calls play at the moment of offside, to avoid time wasting and defence confusion. Now, due to FIFA interference, this is sometimes done, and sometimes not done, which is causing the controversy, not just the scored goals. If Bladder wants to change the whole nature of football by changing the whole notion of what offside is, including doing away with the off-side trap, let him say so and let's have a full worldwide debate for a time (long before th IFAB makes a decision, which up to now has been done without real input from those involved). But to couch the FIFA tamperings, especially the doublespeak directive of last fall which has caused so much confusion, as a mere "restatement" or a "simplification" of "the traditional offside rule" is evil doublespeak. Blatter created the "active/passive" controversy, and now he wants to avoid repsonsibility for the mess by claiming he wants to "simplify", thus causing more problems. And he'll try to get it done behind closed doors again.
Is it only his Blatherness who does not understand? This is exactly how the Law is written, and is entirely within the "clarification" expressed by IFAB last year. OK, don't worry about describing it as "passive" and "active" - just call it "not offside" or "offside" and be done with it! I could see an "advantage-like" discretion given to offside - but that would apply to the opponents. There's no ruling in soccer of, "Well, he did it but he didn't mean it, and beside he didn't gain an advantage." That's close to trifling as applied to fouls, but not exactly the same thing. Trifling refers to an action by an opponent which might be a foul, but didn't have an effect on the player to do what he wanted in the situation. A player who is offside but comes back onside to get the ball, even though it might not be immediately "advantageous" to him or his team, does at least retain possession of the ball. The player might have been able to get to the ball because he had not been marked by the opponents while he was in the offside position. It's just cutting it too fine to make the ref decide if he gained because of being offside. I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. If you mean the AR should raise the flag immediately when the ball is kicked and there's a player in an offside position, and let the ref decide whether there's participation, I totally disagree. The ref often won't be able to tell if the player that participated was the one offside or onside, because of the better perspective of the AR. Also, it will serve to give the players, coaches and spectators a bone of contention - "Hey, ref, your linesman flagged it!" A third point is that this is a trained AR, a certified referee, who has the ability to make decisions (under the authority of the referee). However, if you mean that the flag should go up when it's apparent the offside-positioned player's movement is toward play, and there's no other (onside) player that might get the ball, then I agree. And that position is supported by the new FIFA Q&A.
They had a stand-up guy with a refereeing background at the highest levels of FIFA at one point...Michel Zen-Ruffinen. He spoke truth to power, was ousted, and we're left with a Swiss Army colonel (isn't that comparable to being a general in the Salvation Army???) and former watch exec trying to tell us about offside issues... What a sad state of affairs.