16th January 2023
There was a controversial offside decision this weekend in a high-profile football match.
Usually, for anyone with an interest in the game, it is plain if a player is offside or not and, if so, whether there has been an offside offence.
But this understanding is rarely based on someone studying the laws of association football.
Instead it is often based on watching hundreds – thousands – of instances, playing in matches, discussing incidents with others, reading reporters and hearing commentators.
Over time, someone can build up a good working knowledge of the rules and how they should and should not apply.
In a word, for many football fans, the knowledge of the sport is lore, rather than law.
And this is no different for many games and sports, and indeed it is true for most people in every day life about the laws of the land.
But every so often something so distinct happens that the common folk knowledge of a rule, and how it is should and should not be applied, can seem deficient.
And so we had the sight on Match of the Day of the pundits putting Law 11 of the laws of association football on the screen for viewers to read the offside offence themselves.
The one thing which struck me was one single, awful word which has no place whatsoever in any formal rules or laws, either of association football or of anything else.
“…clearly…”
Those who are geeks about the rules of football may be able to explain the purpose of that dreadful “c” word in this code.
But the job of any formal law, rather than lore, is to provide a precise rule capable of being applied to relevant facts so as to create a binary situation: the rule either applies or does not apply, and if it applies it has either been infringed or it has not been.
It is not clear (ahem) what the “c” word adds to the rule, and it seems to make the rule less precise.
As it happens, most people who watched the incident, using only the lore of offside, believed an offence had been committed.
But the referee who had to apply the formal rule said otherwise.
And, as is so often the case, lore gets things right, and the law does not.
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“Clearly”, lol. Very true.
I had similar fun ‘n’ games with Japan’s much-scrutinised goal v Spain in the recent World Cup:
https://ayenaw.com/2022/12/02/schrodingers-ball/
Whilst I appreciate I’m liable to be considered ‘off-topic’ (and therefore possibly irksome), could I widen this very interesting topic of sporting law/lore?
At the beginning of January, there was a superb catch taken in a cricket match by Michael Neser.
https://twitter.com/ESPNcricinfo/status/1609538394920726530?s=20&t=ZHlap6-eZk0c_gZ_5_Bzcg
The relevant Law here is Law 19.5.2. This states: “A fielder who is not in contact with the ground is considered to be grounded beyond the boundary if his/her final contact with the ground, before his/her first contact with the ball after it has been delivered by the bowler, was not entirely within the boundary.”
I qualified as a Level One umpire (the lowest of the low), but that Law is written in such ‘legalese’ that it makes interpretation to a non-lawyer/Level 3 International umpire, almost impossible.
Luckily, I follow enough cricket to see these incidents.
But my point is that, whatever the sport, spare a thought for the low-level referee/umpire.
The Premier League referees/International umpires are highly trained and with modern technology. Those of us giving up our time on Hackney Marshes or the cricket grounds of villages across the world, do not have access to 3rd umpires or VAR.
But those playing the game will expect us to provide that level of refereeing.
This I know from personal experience when I was asked why there wasn’t a 3rd umpire with hotspot in a Division 4 cricket match here in France.
Any controversial decisions you can be sure will be repeated next week, or next season. ‘Mankading’ is just another example.
So whenever you have a spare slot, David, sporting lore/law is an excellent topic.
As I understand it, the purpose of the “clearly” is to establish and emphasise the advantage of the attacking player.
Others will have more precise knowledge but I know that, starting some years ago, the offside law was tweaked (more than once) in an attempt to make the game more entertain by encouraging more attacking ply (and, by implication, more goals). One of the provisions was that the attacking player had to be “clearly” offside to be penalised and so would be more likely to be able to continue play.
I believe (but have no hard evidence) that two factors have pushed offside decisions back into the realm of the marginal:
– Lengthy analysis by TV pundits supported by multiple high-definition slow-motion replays, allowing them to pronounce on whether the tip of the player’s teacup (or some similarly tiny part of him or her) was, in fact, beyond the line.
– The Video Assistant Referee (VAR), which is the same thing but used by match officials rather than TV pundits.
And, as you note, since most viewers understand the lore better than the law, the term “clearly” has power that it perhaps should not.
I’m not sure that I follow. Over the weekend I did what you did and read Law 11. I concluded that the effect of that “clearly” (the last one, since the other two are not relevant) is that the attacker must be given the benefit of the doubt. If the likelihood that the ability of the defender to play the ball was affected is no higher than, say, 50/50, no offence was committed.
You are of course quite right to observe that most football pundits have never read the Laws of the Game, but that doesn’t change the fact that the referee’s decision was, euh, clearly right.
I know as little as it is possible to know about a sport which is plastered over all media. However, your interesting comment leads me to an observation.
Should the laws of sport have a case law system? I’m suggesting that if a respected decision maker agrees with your interpretation, and implements it in a game, a supplement to Law 11 should be added to specify the allocation of benefit of doubt?
This seems to be close to David’s original point in that if something needs interpreting then it should be formally interpreted.
Interesting how often many of the people whose (jobs one might assume) require them to understand the law, in fact know only the lore instead. And are then surprised when the two differ. Of course it is then (clearly) the *law* that is the ass.
This case being just one example of course.
The referee made the correct decision according to the law as written but clearly the goal shouldn’t have stood as the law was intended to work.
The problem here is that the Offside Law has become so complex. Leaving aside the definition of being in an offside position, the law has been updated successively to try to define the offence exactly, thus removing the interpretation arising from judging whether a player offside is “active” or “interfering with play”. A noble aim but inevitably a situation will arise that the law cannot cover.
The law would be much simpler and more acceptable if the referee was able to use their judgement on whether a player is active or not. Attempting to make things more objective as made the Offside Law a nonsense.
I suspect the law will be amended yet again to plug this loophole before other sides take advantage of it. It reminds me of Ernie Hunt’s infamous “donkey kick” free kick for Coventry City in 1970. The resulting goal was legal but the rules were soon changed.
I’m not old enough to remember 1970, but your mental reference point for offside is obviously more modern than mine!
My conception of the world is stuck at the point where the “natural” state of the offside rule is that anyone in an offside position by default gains an advantage or interferes with the opponents’ decision-making (if you’re off, you’re off), and “recent” changes have added, rather than removed, subjective interpretation (what is “interfering with play”?).
This seems to be in the realm of “lore” rather than “law”, since I don’t believe the rules themselves changed, only the assessment of the nature of the world those rules to (what does it physically look like to interfere with an opponents’ decision-making?), but it was drastic in effect than changes to the actual text that have been made.
“Interfering with play” was a very old concept with offside. Much older than the 1970s. Essentially it meant that you could be in an offside position but by being many yards away not interfering in play. More recently FIFA changed this to players being “active” or “inactive” in a move and added all those bullet points in DAG’s references. The aim was to make it more objective. It has only made things worse.
Yeah, that’s why I think it’s more lore than law really.
I suppose you could say the practical application used to have the effect of putting the burden the other way around, however the rule was worded. The “interfering with play” clause tended to be seen more as a special case rather than an intrinsic part of the assessment: it would save you from getting flagged in instances where you were obviously *not* interfering (lying injured, or jogging back towards your own goal with hands apologetically in the air, for instance).
As a lifelong left-back, that baseline assumption that (unless proven otherwise) most things an attacker does will affect the defender’s play to some greater or lesser extent remains self-evident to me! I think that’s really probably at the nub of it all: in wanting to prioritise the attacking team through the change in interpretation, it necessitated building the logic of the law around an assumption (that defenders don’t by default pay any heed to what attackers are doing) that doesn’t fit reality. Thus whatever the wording, it sometimes inevitably ends up seeming at odds with the kind of “natural justice” of things, if you will.
Dear David,
Is it your contention that the addition of the word ‘clearly’ adds a requirement to allow for speculation about intent that will tend to lead the judge or referee into error? I’m reminded that in this context Bill Shankly observed that a player who is not interfering or influencing the play has no “right to be on the pitch”. In that sense the ‘lore of football’ led decision is preferable. An entirely non-legal opinion.
Manchester unreasonableness?
Clearly the better side won. And Marcus Rashford showed again that he has skills beyond playing football.
You have highlighted, indirectly, a source of major problems with the Laws of Football, which is not so frequently found in other sports, or even domains of law: the inherent subjectivity. Offside: ‘clearly’ of course, but also ‘impacts’; handball ‘played’ the ball (as opposed to touching it; foul tackles and so on.
Since referees, even Video Assisted ones are not Gods able to discern the hearts of men and women (even in slow motion) they have to guess what the intention of the player was, whether the advantage or disadvantage was ‘clear’ and so on. Fine when the game was played between 22 boys or men just wanting to have some fun: not so good when millions of pounds can turn on a single decision.
A sensible revision of the Laws would not add thousands more words and sub-clauses. It would eliminate, so far as possible, all subjectivity in so far as ‘normal’ offences are concerned. The exception would be when the offence was so serious and deliberate that the offender needs more than the standard free kick as punishment but a yellow or red card. Those, and only those, should be awarded according to the referee’s view of the intent involved.
The mess that is the present Offside Law is the result of years of trying to eliminate subjectivity. The problem with this is that the law must take into account all the possible variations. A new variation was discovered on Saturday which resulted in a perverse, though correct, ruling. Going back to the much simpler rule, where the referee was expected to judge whether a player in an offside position is interfering with play or not would enable most of the current law to be deleted.
Something has gone wrong with the indenting of the bullet points on that FA webpage: I can see no clear (ahem) differentiation between the first and second level of the nested unnumbered lists in the rendered page.
The HTML source (and linked PDF) are laid out much more clearly, but perhaps it would be better if the so-called “laws” used numbered subparagraphs (e.g. 2 (a) (b) (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (c) (i) (ii) ).
In the instance under consideration, I think a fair case could be made that a player “in an offside position” was (b) “interfering with an opponent by” (iv) “making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball”.
The physical presence of the player, and the (obvious) way he moved, had a (clear) impact on the opposition players and what they did in response.
But no doubt reasonable people can reasonably reach different conclusions. Most particularly, and most importantly in this case, the referee.
Such a case can absolutely be made. Hence the question: what is the standard of proof? And I would aver that the Law, as written, requires that close calls are decided in favour of the attacker. (Which seems like what a sensible legislator would do.)
Well, Law 5 – https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-5—the-referee – confirms that:
“Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match.”
and
“Decisions will be made to the best of the referee’s ability according to the Laws of the Game and the ‘spirit of the game’ and will be based on the opinion of the referee who has the discretion to take appropriate action within the framework of the Laws of the Game.”
There is enough wriggle room there to reach whatever conclusion you wish, but in this case, I would suggest the referee must, to the best of their ability, form a view whether, in their opinion, a player in an offside position was interfering with an opponent by making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball. Or not.
I think I agree with others that words “obvious” and “clearly” suggest some sort of “benefit of the doubt” should be given to the attacking team – an evidential burden, perhaps – but that is not a high hurdle and once that threshold is crossed in the mind of the referee then they have discretion to take the appropriate action.
To bring this back to the law, perhaps we need to add a “man in black” to the passenger list on the Clapham omnibus, alongside the reasonable man, the right-thinking member of society, the officious bystander, the fair-minded and informed observer, and the person having ordinary skill in the art.
Scots Property Law has its own version of a law against offside goals, although I’m not sure i can remember that any better than the football version
The funny thing is, the offside law used to be a lot clearer until FIFA attempted to, er, clarify it. And I bet most football fans are more familiar with the law as it used to be worded than the current, ugly version.
https://downloads.theifab.com/downloads/laws-of-the-game-1978-79
Exactly. Reminds me of my motto on my more cynical days in process management: “When I hear the word ‘improvement’ I reach for my gun!”
Some of the changes are useful. For example, I do think it’s valuable to clarify (sorry!) that, in borderline cases (which matters now we have VAR), it’s the legs, head and torso of the player which matters, not their arms – that is, the parts of the body that matter are those which can lawfully touch the ball.
But, on the other hand, the phrase “second-last opponent” is really hideously awful. The old wording, that you could not be offside if there are two or more opposition players closer to the goal line, is much clearer. And the attempt to expand on the concept of “interfering with play” by giving detailed descriptions of different forms of interference only serves to create more, not less, ambiguity.
It isn’t just in law that this happens. I remember seeing the notion of a “learning curve” being debunked at a business school. The idea is that the first time you do something it takes longer and requires more resource than when repeated. Yet the experience is that the reverse happens. For instance the first time drilling occured in the North Sea it took 18 months from license to result. By the time of the 5th licences it took 4 years. What happened was that instead of rewriting based on experience, the rules were added to.
Fascinating post and comments.
The referee was objectively right and subjectively wrong.
I’m inclined to agree with other commenters who (if I may) have observed that the laws have developed to include hundreds of words to objectively define circumstances that hitherto demanded a subjective decision.
It’s a fool’s errand.
On MOTD2 there was an interesting discussion about whether some additional clause might be added to the offside law that would have allowed the ref to make the correct-in-lore decision.
Nothing much came of it. But I thought they missed a trick. A new clause COULD be added along the lines of “or if the attacking player intended to do any of the above”.
In this instance, Rashford (ahem) clearly intended to make his opponents think he was going to shoot. In all likelihood, that was exactly what he intended, until the scorer intervened.
So, introducing “intention” to the current offside rule would (second ahem) enshrine lore in law.
I am not in favour of this, except insofar as it would make the offside law consistent with the preposterously unprovable law covering ‘deliberate’ handball.
Blimey, adding “intention” to anything makes things more difficult. The ref has a difficult enough job to do without having to deduce the intentions of the player as well as his or her actions.
See also handball, which has become a most ludicrous thing in many circumstances, with players now having to defend while doing a Rufus T Firefly impression to avoid their arms appearing to be part of their body.
Can I add also that the reason the offside law has become so complex is because the football authorities wanted to make football more exciting, and stop the relative ease with which teams in the 70s could create an offside trap. And now we have players deliberately standing in an offside position in order not to play the ball.
Would it be preferable to use unequivocally rather than clearly?
I believe the purpose of ‘clearly’ in Law 11 is to give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. If in the referee’s opinion there is uncertainty about whether the attacker in an offside position is obstructing the defender, then there is not an infringement.
And I see no problem with that approach. That’s not to say the Law as it stands is perfect; instead of a presumption of no infringement unless the player is clearly attempting to play the ball/obstruct a defender, I would have a presumption that there *is* an infringement by a player who is close enough to play the ball/obstruct a defender unless they are clearly (unequivocally, definitely, indubitably, spectacularly, whatever) attempting *not* to do so. Other opinions are available.
However you want to change it, Law 11 has evolved regularly over the past 150ish years to ensure attackers are always reasonably able to avoid the risk of an offside infringement. The development of the modern concepts of active and passive in the 00s brought an end to the negative, tedious, back-four-in-a-line offside traps of old, and I do not miss that tactic one bit.
Much of the lore, as David puts it, dates back to those days, a period in the evolution that has long passed. This will inevitably lead to some spectators (and indeed managers) complaining because they don’t understand or are wilfully ignoring the change; so be it. But that isn’t a reason to go back.
The old Law ultimately created a problem, the negativity of the old-style offside trap. The Law evolved to address the problem. This is a fine example of how the evolution of legislation should work. That it is not yet perfect (and never can be) is inevitable and should merely encourage legislators to keep the evolution going.
Doesn’t ‘reasonable’ have all the subjective characteristics of ‘clearly’?
“ If my hand is in the air it must be offside ref “ is the oldest of all the tricks in the old pros manual.
This tactic is often employed by a weaker team against a stronger team because it seeks to minimise differences in skill levels by compacting open play.
Similarly you cannot be offside from a throw in. When your opponent has a long throw expert throwing balls directly into your penalty area this is not done aimlessly because a bouncing ball in a penalty area minimises skill levels between players.
The best rules should be clearly written but, as any experienced lawyer will be able to tell you, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and there will always be another case tomorrow !
Referees are unique: They have absolutely no right to be protected at work from tens of thousands of people making public assertions about their auto erotic behaviour, in raucous angry chorus.
I had the privilege of attending a course run by former Premier League chief ref, Keith Hackett. He emphasised the honour and grace bequeathed by ‘Law’ 5 on the boys and girls in black. Others have to accept it, or they don’t get a game of football at all.
Words like ‘clearly’, are used in other less important ‘Laws’ to protect the person who agrees to do the impossible job of realtime interpretation of a modern game.
Law 5
1. The authority of the referee
Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match.
2. Decisions of the referee
Decisions will be made to the best of the referee’s ability according to the Laws of the Game and the ‘spirit of the game’ and will be based on the opinion of the referee who has the discretion to take appropriate action within the framework of the Laws of the Game.
The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final. The decisions of the referee, and all other match officials, must always be respected.
World Chase Tag has a similar rule for their DTR (Disputed Tag Review: think VAR). It is the responsibility of the chaser to make a tag clear. All this means is that if the referees, after reviewing the footage from multiple cameras, aren’t certain whether or not a tag was made, the benefit of the doubt goes to the evader. I think the rule makes sense in this context.
(The full rules of the game are actually not shown on the World Chase Tag website, which is a pity. I’ve watched a lot of matches and listened to commentary, so this too is lore, but the commenters have read out the relevant rule when occasion demands it, so I’m pretty certain of it.)