Oliver Pritchett, the humorous columnist of the Sunday
Telegraph, began his column one week with the story of a family who were summoned to the death bed of their father, a renowned wise old sage. They were told he had a vital secret of the offside law. Was it they wondered, the secret of the universe, the meaning of life? As they bent down to hear his words, he whispered, 'I'm going to tell you the secret of the offside law.'
It's funny how many people feel that there is some mystery about the offside law. The truth is that the offside law is very simple. It's only people who make it complicated.
The first thing to understand, is what it means to be in an offside position. The offside law says this occurs; 'If a player is nearer to his opponents goal line, than both the ball and the second last opponent.' This means of course that if a player is behind the ball when it is passed to him, he cannot be offside, even though there may not be any opponents between him and their goal line. That's why taking the ball down to the goal line can be so dangerous.
There are three other occasions when a player cannot be offside, even though he may be nearer to the goal line. These are when he is in his own half, when he receives the ball direct from a throw-in or direct from a corner.
What has been exercising a lot of minds in the last few years, is what is the correct judgement of a player being nearer to his opponents' line than the second last defender. In other words how much of the player must be in front, for him to be in an offside
position?
One suggestion was that the player was in an offside position, if his feet were in front of the opponent. Think about it, the proposers said, as being on the halfway line. If the player's feet are over the line, then he is in the opponent's half even if his body, or torso as they called it, was still behind the line.
We also had a ruling from Philip Don, who was the supremo of the Select band of professional referees who take Premiership games. He told his assistant referees, that they must see clear daylight between the attacker and the second last defender before deciding they were offside. Because this was at the top end of the game in this country, his ruling got a lot of media coverage especially by television commentators. Despite the FA refuting this interpretation, John Motson was still asking at the end of last season, 'What happened to the clear daylight ruling?' Suffice to say that not long after, Philip Don was relieved of his position.
But now, we have a new International Board Decision added to the laws, giving the definitive answer to this question. 'The definition of offside being nearer to the opponents goal line, means that any part of his head, body or feet is nearer the goal line than the ball and the second last opponent.' The arms are not included in the definition.The reason given is that the game is played with the head, body and feet but not the hands.
I have run the line hundreds of times and I'm sure other referees will do it the same way as me. We stay in line with the second last defender and then look along the line. What we are looking for is colours of shirts. Not arms or feet or torsos. If we see the colour of an attacking player in front of the defenders, he is in an offside position. I sometimes wonder if it's Oliver Pritchett, who writes these interpretations,
Dick
Sawdon Smith