The Ref Stop

Dartford v Maidstone, offside or not? Ref reverses assistant's flag.

S

Simon Haydon

New Member
Level 6 Referee
http://www.maidstoneunited.co.uk/2015/11/stones-tv-dartford-highlights/
The incident takes place in the 82nd minute. Dartford in white and Maidstone in Amber. Dartford player shoots from edge of area, attacker in an offside position ducks to allow ball into goal. GK approx 3 yards to left of offside player dives but cannot reach the ball.
His direct line of vision is not influenced by the offside striker, unless he sees him out of the corner of his eye.
I'm tempted to agree with the referee here, but I'm not sure why.
Assistant flags for offside but is over-ruled by ref.
Any guidance appreciated.
 
The Ref Stop
That has to be offside. If he doesn't duck the ball probably hits him so he has directly impacted the ball by ducking. You could also argue that the keeper couldn't dive at full stretch due to him being in the way so possible did impede the keeper
 
I agree with the referee here. The keeper is not going to save that, regardless of whether the striker is there or not.

Brave referee to over rule the linesman though.
 
Had to watch this 3 or 4 times and I'm close to sitting on the fence keeper probably wasn't saving it ...BUT with the adaptation of the offside law and the fact my assistant had flagged ? I would be inclined to give the offside he is standing 2ft away keeper in an offside position and must be a distraction ?
 
Why isn't the keeper going to save it, it's hardly a rock and isn't anywhere near the corner? The keeper can't fully commit to the dive with the player in the way.
 
AR did the right thing in flagging. Saw a player in an obviously offside position and was unsure whether he had interfered with play. Referee does the right thing in consulting with him and then it's the ref's call as to whether the goalie's actions were impacted. So not so much an 'overrule' as good teamwork in action. Did the ref make the right call?? Very marginal and could argue either way so my vote is for backing the official on the spot .....
 
If we're going to post a lengthy video to discuss an incident, can we please state where in the video the incident occurs? It's about the 6:50 mark

Bit difficult to tell, but it looks like the keeper may have potentially had his capacity to dive blocked by the presence of the opponent, so offside. Personally I think it's crap that this is how far offside has come (take a different scenario - the attacker is a yard off to the side of the ball. Any keeper is going to have to calculate the possibility that the attacker is going to attack the ball rather than depend on offside).

LC said:
That has to be offside. If he doesn't duck the ball probably hits him so he has directly impacted the ball by ducking. You could also argue that the keeper couldn't dive at full stretch due to him being in the way so possible did impede the keeper
Click to expand...
I don't follow your logic there. How has he directly impacted the ball? Ducking under the ball isn't playing or touching the ball.
 
Dare I say it, player reaction indicates there was no issue with the award of the goal when it happened. I think the ref got it right, the law I think is that he has to decide if the goalkeeper was impacted by the player and whether the player made an obvious movement.

As above, this is good teamwork, as a Lino I'd be flagging that all day long as from his view the player is in an offside position, tell the ref what you see and let him make the final call. The ref was in a great position to see as well.
 
I don't think the players reaction means anything here. In another game he could have been standing 10 yards away from goals picking his nose and the defensive team would be going absolutely ballistic.

Teamwork is all a good point though - any doubt by the AR and it's worth flagging. I wonder if in this case you're better off flagging, but then switching straight to the 'talk' signal, not 'near/middle/far'?
 
CapnBloodbeard said:
I don't follow your logic there. How has he directly impacted the ball? Ducking under the ball isn't playing or touching the ball.
Click to expand...

No but if he doesn't duck the ball possibly hits him. So his actions mean that the ball goes into the goal rather than rebounding off of him meaning his actions have an impact on where the ball goes
 
But he ducked, so the ball didn't hit him.....

potentially being in the way of the ball (but then not) doesn't satisfy the criteria for interfering with play or an opponent.
 
And if he didn't duck the ball hits him. His actions have had a direct impact on what happens to the ball.....
 
AR was too quick with the flag.

Should of waited, thought about it, seen if there was an appeal by the GK. Then kept his flag down. The goal was expected, came as a surprise and nearly got the defense out of the sh1t
 
The keeper was the only one would've had a clue and the only clips of him after the goal show him appealing.
 
It doesn't matter whether the keeper would have saved it or not - you won't find that in the laws.
And in this case the ducking action doesn't need analysis.
In the reply I think you can clearly see that the keeper does not stretch out his arms fully because the player, in an offside position, is so close to him.
Easy offside. Really poor of the ref to overrule there as the player in the offside position may well have been at the edge of his peripheral vision.
 
Whether the player is in the keeper's peripheral vision or not is irrelevant. All that matters is if his view was blocked in a manner that affected his capacity to play the ball (it wasn't) or whether his presence restricted the keeper's ability to play the ball - not because the keeper wasn't sure what he'd do, but do to a risk of colliding with him. That latter point is the only valid argument here. nothing else matters.
 
Jacko said:
AR was too quick with the flag.

Should of waited, thought about it, seen if there was an appeal by the GK. Then kept his flag down. The goal was expected, came as a surprise and nearly got the defense out of the sh1t
Click to expand...

wtf?

You're actually arguing that the AR should wait for the defending team to decide whether they want to appeal the offside before signalling? Do you truly not see the absurdity of that, or are you genuinely trolling?

Goal is scored, AR is thinking "Well, it clearly looked offside to me, but crap, the defending team hasn't abused me yet, man, I wish I was at home watching the rugby...."
Defensive keeper stands there staring at the ball for a few moments. Attacker runs off to celebrate. Keeper turns to abuse his sweeper for not shutting them down. Sweeper gets defensive, turns around to the right back and yells at him. Right back responds 'not my fault, he was f****** offside anyway but this cheating linesman didn't do anything!!'
Keeper jumps on that, him and the sweeper and the captain then start walking towards and abusing the AR.
AR says to himself "Oh thank god for that, now I can make the decision I was paid to make and knew was the correct one all along!"
....and finally raises his flag.

If the AR thinks there was interference with an opponent, then he should certainly signal - and he should signal without requiring a straw poll from the players on the field first. Otherwise we may as well just redistribute the referee fees amongst the players, if they're the ones refereeing the match.
 
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