Italy's Ruud awakening for offside at Euro 2008


Many people thought that Euro 2008 would be of little interest to English football fans with the failure of England to qualify. They therefore found it surprising that the television viewing figures were very high, but it shows that, for others of us, it was a pleasure to sit back in the hope that the football will be worth watching and the best team would win. 

Every tournament throws up some controversial decisions and 2008 was no exception. One decision very early on, which sparked off a great deal of heat, happened at the Holland/Italy match and many people, including fellow referees, afterwards asked me what I thought of the decision. For those who have forgotten the sequence or didn’t watch it at the time, here’s a reminder of what created all the fuss. 

A free kick was awarded to Holland on the right hand side of the Italian penalty area. When the ball was floated in, the goalkeeper Buffon punched clear, collided with his own defender Panucci, knocking him over the goal line, three yards outside the field of play, outside the goal post. The goalkeeper’s weak punch resulted in the ball finished up at the feet of a Dutch player. The other Italian defenders advanced beyond their goal area leaving Ruud van Nistlerooy, four yards from the goal line. There was only the goalkeeper between him and the goal line when his team mate passed him the ball, which he promptly put in the net. Panucci was still grounded off the field and looked up to see the goal scored.

The Italian defenders immediately appealed for offside to the assistant referee, Stephen Wittberg, who incidentally raised England’s hope in their qualifying game against Croatia, by spotting the tug on Joe Cole’s shirt that gave England a penalty. This Holland/Italy match was covered by ITV, and commentator Clive Tyldesley said, ‘It looks a mile offside to me.’ His co-commentator, David Pleat commented, ‘It’s a very, very poor decision.’ Andy Townsend, a studio based pundit agreed, ‘Yes. It was offside. It was a bad decision from the linesman who had no one in front of him and at this level you’ve got to get that right.’ 

The next day, however, UEAF issued a statement stating that the ‘referee’s team’ had applied the Law correctly. “The player was not offside because in addition to the goalkeeper there was another Italian player (Panucci) in front of the goal scorer. Although he had fallen off the pitch, he was still deemed to be part of the game. Therefore he is taken into consideration as one of the last two opponents. If we did not have this interpretation of players being off the pitch, the defending team could use the tactic of deliberately stepping off the pitch to play opponents offside, which is clearly unacceptable.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

All referees know that players whose momentum carries them outside the field of play accidentally, or through physical contact, are still part of the game, whether it is over the touch line or goal line. Punucci was not injured, that is to say he didn’t require treatment, so even that excuse can’t be used. 

This is not as uncommon as it may seem. A similar incident, when the last defender, except the goalkeeper, had gone over the goal line, happened when Emile Heskey scored for Wigan against Chelsea in 2006. I am also told of another instance in the Swiss Super League in May. The commentator suggested that the referee had made a mistake under the offside law. However, when it was pointed out to him that the referee’s decision was correct, he publicly apologised.

Can you believe that - a commentator or pundit apologising when they have misled the viewing public through insufficient knowledge?  Clive Tyldesley, David Pleat, Andy Townsend – we are still waiting 

 Dick Sawdon Smith 

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© R Sawdon Smith 2008