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

[Russell Jones]

we have again touched on a very grey area in the LAWS.

To be fair, any of the Laws which are written such that it is 'in the opinion of the referee' are inevitably 'grey' rather than black and white. This is one of many examples.

It seems like the consensus on here is moving towards the fact that it should have been given as offside and I can see why.. but I still think there's serious doubt over whether the keeper could have got there even if you take the offside player out of the picture .. and therefore choose to support the original referee's decision .. he was well placed and had a great view

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

Again, Captain, if you award this is a goal, and if it was clarified as such in the laws, then next week coaches will line up two spare attackers inside the six yard box in front of the posts for the whole 94 minutes because it is such a massive disadvantage to the goalkeeper.
That is not the intention of the badly worded law.

And please look again - the goalkeeper does not stretch out his hands because of the position of the player. You can tell me that doesn't matter because of the wording of the law. I am telling you that IMHO that is not the intent of the wording of the law.

Well...for one, nobody is going to do that all game.
And, two - so what if they did? Where in the laws is it illegal for a player to stand in an offside position?
I agree that if the keeper's movement was restricted it's an offence - I can't tell that from the clip, but I agree there in principle anyway. But ducking under the ball, or affecting the keeper's decision making merely because he may think you'll move the ball, is 100% not offside.