|
 |
OFFSIDE? 2-10-07
Jeff Winter
Does anyone know the offside law? Well I should but at times I am not so sure. Fans are confused, players are confused and obviously those media experts who like to have a go are very confused.
Let's look back to the good old days, to use Cloughy parlance. If you are on the pitch you are interfering. Thirty yard screamers were disallowed because some one was inches offside. We then moved on to the emphasis of interfering with play. If a player was in an offside position but did not interfere with an opponent then that was OK. Still with me?
A few seasons ago, in an attempt by the authorities to encourage more attacking play and get more goals they tweaked the interpretation. Now we started talking about phases of play and being passive and active. Very good stuff for the school teachers, but way over the head of the majority.
Still the refs know the rules, or more to the point the assistant referees (lino's). Well actually, do they? For those who keep up to date with my "League of Injustice" in Zoo magazine, you will see that the most errors in giving or ruling out goals are poor offside decisions.
Everyone will agree that it is a near impossible job to do. How many times have we screamed at the match only to watch MOTD and see that one player pelting forward as a defender rushes out and leaving him looking yards offside was actually not offside?
What has made the situation worse is that the linos have been told to wait till the player in an offside position becomes active, meaning that he does not flag when the fans expect him to, often flagging late when to the naked eye at that moment the player is not offside. More often than not the Lino is correct but it is an impossible decision to sell to the fans.
Let's look at some recent incidents. Chelsea scored a goal with a shot from outside the box, with John Terry stood in front of the keeper, surely interfering with an opponent. But the lino, whilst able to see him in that position cannot tell how close he is to the keeper and whether or not he is distracting his vision, the ref would have a better view of this from his angle.
Surely the lino should flag and then leave it to the ref to make the final decision. The fans would love that, flag goes up ref gives a goal, cue "You don't know what you're doing."
Spurs goal against Boro last week, when Bale ran through no problem, but did Lennon interfere with Taylor?
Daft thing is that if Bale's shot had hit the post or the keeper and come back to Lennon who had scored it would have been allowed because it was a different phase of play. If however Bale had taken a free kick on goal with Lennon in an offside position then the ball came back into play off the keeper or the post then he would have been given offside, same phase of play.
Is it any wonder you are confused? I asked Dave Penney what his advice to his defenders is and he replied "Don't play for offsides". Judging by the 7-4 and 4-4 score lines this weekend I think many have already decided that.
So what is the answer? I don't know. I don't believe it should be done away with, but there does need to be some clarification for everybody's sake.
Talking of offside, I will tell you something that is definitely well offside.
I received the following rant from Rob Boney.
"I am so sorry, I thought the guy speaking on Sky TV was a proper authority on football - not just another old referee. It's a bit unfortunate for your lot that most "important" games are shown on TV now to show how incompetent or how biased you can be. I bet you are pleased that you have taken gardening leave already."
I suppose you and Graham Poll, the other arch self publicist, meet on the rubber chicken dinner speaking circuit? Is he your agent?
Since I launched my website two months ago I have had over 10,000 hits and still regularly get invites to speak on National TV, radio and do a variety of articles so somebody must be interested in my opinions.
There are a few out there though, like Rob, who have a problem because I used to be a referee. Had I been a player who is regularly wheeled out on all of the programmes to make comments, quite often totally incorrect and more often than not actually factually wrong, then that's OK. Ex-ref; he must be a self publicist.
Well Rob, sorry mate, I won't be going away. You complain when you don't hear from referees after games as the authorities won't let them speak. You still complain when those who are experienced and capable of speaking because we are not tied to the authority's apron strings do. What do you want?
The easy answer is if you don't like it, turn off the TV, switch off the radio and don't buy the paper, but we are not going away!
If you are going to Manchester City I might see you there, however on Saturday tune in to the region's most popular radio show from 12 till 2 then post match let me have your opinions from 5.30 on the Phone-In show that has not gone away.
YOU CAN READ MANY MORE OF JEFF'S ARTICLES ON HIS OFFICIAL SITE
RETURN TO JEFF WINTER'S SOCCER SPOTLIGHT INDEX HERE
 |
|
|
|
