Why offside rule

However, such decisions could soon be a thing of the past. According to his theory, a player should be judged offside only if any part of the body with which he can score a goal is past the last defender. Based on the reports of the trials, they would decide if it can be applied globally. While FIFA has tinkered with a lot of other rules of football, the offside law has by and large been untouched despite being one of the most controversial ones. That year, the number of defenders, including the goalkeeper, that had to be between the attacker and the goal was changed from three to two.

The need for an offside law was partly because the sport then resembled forms of rugby, with similar tactics and players allowed to use their hands to control the ball in some circumstances. The attacking players are assumed to be gaining an undue advantage by being ahead of the ball when it is played forward. Offside is still intrinsic in modern rugby union and its retention as a principle in football was keenly advocated when the FA was drawing up its laws.

English upper-class football teams did not pass the ball. Their ethos saw the sport as a test of individual strength rather than technical collective endeavour. The game was to be won via English exceptionalism, not socialistic notions of common enterprise. Not all teams played like this, however. Some 19th-century teams based in English northern industrial communities supported offside, for example, yet played a passing game.

In Scotland especially, passing was a key feature of play, though there was no offside rule. Subsequent revisions pivoted on this dynamic. In the rule was changed so that a player was offside when the ball was played forward, rather than when he received the ball.

Then in , only two defending players needed to be in advance of the forward for him to be onside. The hands and arms of all players, including the goalkeepers, are not considered. For the purposes of determining offside, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit.

A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent. In situations where:. If the player left the field of play deliberately, the player must be cautioned when the ball is next out of play.

An attacking player may step or stay off the field of play not to be involved in active play. If the player re-enters from the goal line and becomes involved in play before the next stoppage in play, or the defending team has played the ball towards the halfway line and it is outside its penalty area, the player shall be considered to be positioned on the goal line for the purposes of offside.

If an attacking player remains stationary between the goalposts and inside the goal as the ball enters the goal, a goal must be awarded unless the player commits an offside offence or Law 12 offence in which case play is restarted with an indirect or direct free kick.