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The Referee Corner: Offside revisited again …

The Fall season has ended. Players showcased their skills and executed the tactics their coaches worked with them on in practice. Fans were there to assist the officials by sharing their opinions on decisions. We anticipated getting some calls and complaints about Offside decisions. We finished out this season with a primer on what the Laws of the Game say is needed for an Offside call.

I want to note that we get multiple comments every season on offside decisions that the fans believe were called in error. However, we have yet to receive a note where a team is challenging a decision that was made in their favor or when this decision resulted in their winning the match. So, the challenges are always made when it affects the outcome of the match in a negative way. If people who play at the highest levels and announcers who played get frustrated, I can imagine what it is like for those of us at Heartland. Let’s review what the Law says about offside. 

The Law (Law 11) has 3 requirements for an Offside infraction:

1. Position: Position is defined as being closer to the goal line than the second to the last defender or the ball. Remember, it is not against the Law to be in an offside position. And the second to the last defender can change. An important skill for an official is the ability to count to 2.
2. Timing of teammate’s touch. Offside can only occur when the last touch on the ball is made by a teammate. This means that if a defender plays the ball there is no offside unless the play on the ball was NOT deliberate.
3. Active involvement is an area where the officiating team needs to consider dynamic factors before making an offside decision. The Law says there are 3 types of active involvement:

• Interfering with play: This could be as simple as going after a teammate’s pass while in an offside position.
• Interfering with a player: A good example of this would be blocking the vision of the goalkeeper so they can’t see or save a shot made by a teammate.
• Seeking to gain an advantage by being in an offside position: A teammate shoots on goal. The ball bounces off the goal post or off the goalkeeper or a defender who is making a save (stops the ball but does not get control of the ball) and goes to the attacker who is closer to the goal line than the second to the last defender or the ball when the ball was shot. If the attacker touches the ball, they should be ruled offside.

When these 3 conditions are met there is an OFFSIDE VIOLATION. If any one of the three conditions is missing, there is no infraction and play should continue.

This is a lot of variable information for a soccer official to process in a short period of time. Every time the ball is touched, the officials must reset their minds and once again consider all three of the above conditions. The most important thing we stress in the certification and mentoring process is the Assistant Referee’s position. It has to be with the second to the last defender or ball, whichever is closer to the goal line. Consider the following picture from the Champions League:

The Assistant Referee is even with the second last defender; however, the ball is the determiner of offside because it is closer to the goal line than the second to the last defender. 

The decisions now are:

• Does the player with the ball shoot on goal? If so, there is no offside infraction because the player is behind the ball.
• Does the player with the ball pass the ball to their teammate? If they do, is the teammate behind the ball or are they in front of the ball with a part of the body they can use to legally score a goal? In this picture the teammate’s foot is closer to the goal line than the ball so a pass should result in an offside infraction. Simple, isn’t it?

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a part of your game. We hope that our decisions are not as close as the one in this picture. We thank you for your support this Fall.

The Referee Blog

 How does the Kansas State Youth Soccer Association and Heartland help your Referees become more effective? It is not always a straight line from actions to results …

Another season has closed for Heartland. We talk about how many new Referees are certified each season (this is the pipeline), but how do we help them to become more effective? And, are we always successful in our efforts?

The number of Referees needed to support soccer at Heartland and in Kansas continues to grow every season. If we certify 500 Referees in a year does that mean we will have 500 effective Referees at the end of the season? Let me share some examples from the past month to help try and answer this question:

A young Referee in their first season was assigned to a U13 match. This Referee had been working on the small sided fields. This was their first match on 11 vs. 11. If you haven’t had the experience of doing a game on a full field, you cannot appreciate how big the field is and how much effort it takes to be in a good position for the entire match. This Referee admitted that they were caught out of position on more than one occasion. However, when the coaches complained about a call (the consensus was that the ball hit the Referee and the call on the field was a Direct Free Kick) this Referee calmly reported that there was a hold before the ball hit the Referee and the restart was for the holding foul. The Referee knew the Laws of the Game and correctly applied them to the situation. This Referee will have to work on anticipation and more consistent movement and will grow to be a competent and effective Referee, but the foundation for effectiveness is in place.

Another young Referee was also assigned to an 11 vs. 11 match (which again means on a full size field). During one of their previous assignments this Referee had a very difficult match. They were not close to play and were nervous about blowing their whistle when there was unfair contact. When I saw this Referee last weekend, the Referee was continually jogging so they could be closer to play. When there was unfair contact, they blew their whistle. While the match three weeks ago was not a positive experience for the officiating crew or the teams, the matches this past weekend were positive experiences for all involved. The foundation for effectiveness in the future was at work again.

These examples show that your Referees want to learn and to become more effective. I also had the opportunity to observe an ECNL match this weekend. One of the Assistant Referees was just 14 years old. I was pleased to see that both Assistant Referees worked hard to be in line with the 2^nd to the last defender, followed the ball all the way to the goal line and had very professional signals. The Center Referee stayed close to play (sometimes too close). A lot of good effort and a lot of learning. This more experienced crew was continuing to learn and to be even more effective. The effectiveness foundation is producing the desired results.

A final example…. A young center Referee was having a difficult match. When the ball went out of play the Referee was confused about which team last touched the ball and whether the decision should be a goal kick or a corner kick or if it went over the touch line which team should get the throw-in. This young Referee was not yet ready to be in the middle of a match. It is not always a straight line from actions to results. We don’t win every time. We are not always as successful as we would like to be in developing your Referees. Yet, with attention and care, that foundation for effectiveness takes hold.

Referees reflect the general population. Some will be very successful in a short period of time and others will take longer to develop. To some, learning and becoming more effective is in their DNA and they will work hard to improve. To others, the pressures of managing a match and making real-time decisions will keep them from immediately reaching their potential. However, we will continue to work with each of them to give them their best chance to be successful. We will continue to count on each of you, as fans and coaches, to give these new Referees the opportunity to reach their full and highest level of performance. To some, having a difficult match will cause them to try harder and be more effective the next time out. To others, your criticisms will cause them to hang up their whistles and flags. 

Several years ago when we asked the new Assistant Referees which side they would rather be on (the coaches or the parents’ side) the answer was the parents’ side. Today, their answer is different. They want to be on the coaches sideline. Why is that?

Kansas has a successful Referee Development methodolgy. We have assisted our Referees in advancing to FIFA and National Referee levels (in 2024 we have 2 new National Referee Candidates in addition to the 3 who have already risen to the top echelons). These officials and the people who worked with them have worked hard to get to these levels. We all want to have hard working, always learning, and always hustling officials on the matches your kids play in. Understand that some Referees will grow their skills faster than some others, and some may not make the cut. With your help and your patience, we can all work together to allow those people who make the decision to become a Referee reach the level of effectiveness that will create a safer and fairer experience in Kansas.



As always, we would welcome seeing you in a Referee class to get certified so that you can help the game to grow and be the best it can be at Heartland. Go to our web site (https://www.kansasreferee.org/) and sign up for a Referee clinic.