I enjoyed David Kerr's 'Happy Memories of a local football career,' which appeared in the
Evening Post at the end of last season.
David played football on the local parks for 28 years which is an astounding length of time. In his observations about the amateur game, he felt the current offside law needed to be changed. If it is difficult enough to manage
it at professional level, he said, but at parks level it is a mess, with a considerable variety of interpretation
amongst referees.
There is a gap in application between the amateur and professional games but I don't think this is down to referees. Even in the professional game there is confusion. On Channel 5 football recently, the celebrity pundit, Harry Redknap, manager of Portsmouth, confessed. 'I don't understand offside anymore,' At least he's honest, whilst other managers show their ignorance by their protests. However, if they were to take the trouble to read the law properly and understand what it is trying to do, it would all fall into place.
The first thing to understand is that it is not an offence to be in an offside position. A regular reader phoned me recently. He had watched a match on television where a goal was scored but two attackers were clearly yards offside in the penalty area. I explained that in his day, they would have been given offside for 'seeking to gain an advantage' in an offside position. The law was changed in 1995, and now players actually have to gain that advantage before being penalised. For example, had the ball rebounded off the goal or the goalkeeper to either of those players, then they would have been given offside.
The two other reasons, which make being in an offside position an offence, have not changed, i.e. interfering with play or interfering with an opponent. If those players in an offside position had blocked the view of the goalkeeper, this would have been seen as interfering with an opponent and penalised.
What has happened is that FIFA have tried to clarify what interfering with play really means. Their first interpretation was that an offside player could only be penalised if he actually touched the ball. This however led to some long delays before the assistant referee could raise his flag. So it is now accepted that an offside player can be penalised if he moves towards the ball, as used to be the case but not if another attacker in an onside position can also reach the ball. The assistant referee must then wait to see who plays it first. This, as we all know, can lead to some late flags, which frustrate spectators, but the idea of course is to create more goal scoring opportunities.
However, at parks level, clubs have to provide someone to run the line and it's difficult for them to take all this on board. This means they are likely to raise their flag for offside as soon as the ball is kicked, rather than wait to see what happens. I always tell them that if they are not sure whether or not the player is interfering, to raise their flag and I will make the decision. I don't think, as David Kerr implies, that there is a variety of interpretations from referees, it is that the information they receive at each individual situation, is not always as good as it could be. But is that a good enough reason to change the
law?
David Kerr complained that the offside law today makes a mockery of the art of good defending. I hope he doesn't mean by that, playing the offside 'trap'. To me, that has always been a sin in local football, because it is putting too much faith, too much pressure on unqualified club officials who take the flag.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2007