The offside law is:
“A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:
interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position”
FIFA also add that:
“interfering with play” means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate
• “interfering with an opponent” means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball
• “gaining an advantage by being in that position” means playing a ball i.e. that rebounds or is deflected to him off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent having been in an offside position
Looking at those definitions then Lescott wasn’t offside because at the moment the ball was kicked by Nasri, Lescott wasn’t obstructing Carson’s line of vision. That seems to be the explanation that ITV said the ref’s group had given along with him not touching the ball.
So if you stick rigidly to that wording then you can justify not giving an offside
BUT
You don’t have to touch the ball just “play” it & that can mean attempting to kick it & missing. Can jumping out of the way at the last second when you are obstructing the path/view of the ball count as playing it coz a dummy can be seen as playing it. In my opinion it is
Also this “at the moment the ball is kicked” if taken literally wouldn’t apply to half the offside decisions correctly given. Take for example of an attacker is trying to get back from an offside position & his team mate hoofs the ball over the top of the defence. At that moment, by the above definition he is not committing an offside offence. But after the ball has bounced, he takes a look, thinks he can put some pressure on the keeper (who is coming out to punt it back upfield) & decides to chase after the ball, the keeper has to put a sprint on & due to pressure from this attacker has to just kick it out of play. He’d then get signalled for offside & the assistant would be correct
But if you go off what ITV said the ref’s group justified Lescott not being given offside for then the above example shouldn’t be either
In Sunday’s incident, Lescott is offside but committing no offence when the ball is kicked. However as he is in that offside position he then moves across the flight of the ball & obstructs Carson’s view of it. Meaning he’s interfered with an opponent. For me the last second jump (essentially a dummy) means he plays the ball so he interferes with play & finally he’s gained an advantage coz if he hadn’t been stood there, he wouldn’t have been able to run the path he took, block the keeper’s view of the ball & make a last milli second jump out of the way.
Taking Latics out of the equation, if I was on the line & that exact same incident happened I would alert the ref that there was a fella offside who although he didn’t touch the ball looked like he may have been interfering with play & it sthen up to the ref to decide whether they were as they would have a better position to decide.
In fairness to the assistant on Sunday, If I’m on an NPL game, the only way I can do that is by sticking my flag up but in Sunday’s game they were mic’d up so the chances are that the assistant did say something but the ref decided Lescott wasn’t interfering with play
IMO though if ITV reported exactly what the ref’s group said then it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because they are not the only times when an offside can be given
Sorry for boring ya!! :P
If you don’t mind I’ll not read that just now – I’m going away in July and I’ll need something to read by the pool.[/quote]
I’ll spoil the ending for you; the ref got it wrong!
