Earlier in the season, after I had written about some offside incidents, a regular reader said to me that it showed how complicated the offside law is now. To tell the truth I was a little deflated, as my intention in the column, was to simplify it. However, if you are still mystified by the offside law as it stands today, then you are not alone. It also seems to baffle many Premiership managers, as a number have confessed on television this season.
Harry Redknapp, manager of Portsmouth, said simply, ‘I don’t understand the offside law anymore’. Mark Hughes of Blackburn said on BBC
Match of the Day 2, ‘Active play, first phase, second phase, it's all beyond me now’. But, with the smile on his face as he said it, I’m not sure whether he was bemused or amused by it all.
Alan Curbishley, now of West Ham, after their recent game with Manchester City complained, ‘Not active, suddenly active, we seem to have lost the plot’. The affable presenter of
Match of the Day 2, Adrian Chiles, said ‘Surely the offside law has always been the same?’ Well, not quite, although there haven’t been any changes since a slight rewriting in 1995.
However there have been several, what I would call ‘definitions’ from FIFA, rather than new interpretations, and it is these that seem to cause the head-scratching.
The changes in 1995 were in fact very small, just four words added and three words left out. It all starts from the premise which the law has always accepted and that is that it is not an offence for a player to be in an offside position.
The law now reads ‘A player should only be penalised for being in an offside position if, in the opinion of the referee, he is INVOLVED IN ACTIVE PLAY. Those four new words really add little to the law on their own, except to emphasise the following three clauses; ‘by interfering with play’, ‘by interfering with an opponent’ or ‘by gaining an advantage by being there’. If we concentrate on the first clause, FIFA defines ‘interfering with play’ as ‘touching or playing the ball’.
So where does all this ‘first phase, second phase,’ that had Mark Hughes bewildered, come
in?
In the Blackburn - Fulham game, the striker was clearly in an offside position. That is to say he was in his opponents' half, nearer to their goal line than two defenders and the ball. But, when it was played, the ball went down the right- hand side of the pitch. That was the first phase and the striker wasn’t penalised because he didn’t play the ball.
An onside team-mate of the striker raced through and took the ball further down the wing. He was then in front of the striker who had been offside and both were still in front of the defenders. This was the second phase and when he crossed the ball, the striker was now behind the ball and therefore
onside and his goal was legitimate.
The disputed goal at the Stadium of Manchester was slightly different but the same logic applies. Darius Vassell was standing offside in the goal area when the ball was crossed from the wing. The ball, however, went behind him and he couldn’t play it, so wasn’t active. That was phase one. A couple of other players played the ball and we are now in the second phase. It bounced forward to Vassell who then had at least three defenders between him and the goal line. So he was active but not offside from that last touch and he scored from that position.
It's simple isn’t it?
Simple enough I’m sure for Premiership managers to understand, if only they would get up to date and not think about the offside law how they would like it to be.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2008