Passive offside in football? It’s just not fair

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By Junior, 14 Jan 2009 Junior is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: Basketball, football, Rugby Union

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Passive offside. The principle is admirable. It encourages attacking football and reduces the number of unnecessary stoppages. Fantastic. No argument there. But is the passive offside law fair?

More specifically, is it fair on defenders?

Consider this: a defender is studiously tracking a forward-thrusting midfielder who runs into an offside position. The midfielder elects to stop, throw his hands in the air and not participate in the play.

Under the passive offside rule he is effectively out of play.

Unfortunately, the defender is exposed as being out of position and is now out of play himself solely due to the inequity of the laws of the game rather than inept defending.

There are three potential solutions to right this wrong:
(a) get rid of the passive offside rule (b) introduce a passive defender rule or (c) get rid of offside altogether.

Let’s look at each one:

(a) No passive offside rule – prior to the passive offside being introduced, any player without two opponents (usually goalkeeper plus one other) between himself and the attacking goal when the ball was played through, was deemed offside.

A return to this “offside is offside” rule when passive was a personality trait, would shift the onus back on the attacker to get back into an onside position at all times.

Basically, if you’re on the pitch then you are interfering in play. The preferable solution.

(b) Introduce a passive defender rule – ridiculous as it sounds, why shouldn’t a defender have the benefit of a passive ruling in his favour? How might it work?

If a defender is loitering, is not involved in the play and is playing an opponent onside (under the current law), then the defender would be deemed “passive” and the attacking player would therefore be deemed offside.

Clearly a can of worms is not far away, but if the passive offside rule is here to stay, then this solution would be the fairest to all players.

(c) Remove offside rule altogether – no doubt the game would speed up and there would be no shortage of goalmouth scrambling. There would also be none of the post game controversy that often comes with offside rulings.

One potential side effect however could be “ugly” goals where strikers hover around the box waiting for a long ball to muscle into the net. Worse still, think of the Peter Crouch or Emile Heskey leaning on an upright waiting to shank one wide.

One of the strengths of football is its simplicity.

Anybody can tune in and pick up the object of the game within minutes. It is in the game’s interests to continue to keep it simple. This needs to be balanced with an attempt at making the game fairer to all participants without being too revolutionary.

With this in mind, option (a) represents the best solution. It is fair and once the basic concept is understood, it is simple. Also, as the way the game was played in the not too distant past, it is hardly revolutionary.

Option (b) would be fair but revolutionary and far from simple. Think of the teeth-grinding spectacle that is rugby union.

While fair and simple, option (c) would be too revolutionary for the game and would be less than palatable to the purists.

Think of the aesthetic abyss that is basketball.

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The Crowd Says (10) | Page 1 of Comments

Millster said | January 14th 2009 @ 10:05am | Report comment

Fantastic article and a conundrum that we all share. I agree that, if it could be implemented, the notion of a ‘passive defender’ is the best solution in theory. Though if I barely have enough faith in a linesman’s ability to track one set of players (the active ones) then I have totally no faith in making life even more complex for them in this manner

I agree with you that removal of offside would destroy the game as we know it.

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Pippinu said | January 14th 2009 @ 11:19am | Report comment

Junior
you have to be kidding me – you reckon the notion of passive offside is the biggest issue relating to the whole concept of offside?

Mate – the fact that nearly half of all offside calls are actually incorrect is just about the biggest issue in the game.

Not fair on the defenders? Give me a break!

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Michael C said | January 14th 2009 @ 11:24am | Report comment

I still reckon hockey shows that removal of offside doesn’t kill off the aethetic, but, does improve the situation for the ref.

No one loiters near goals un attended, and certainly not in soccer. The goalie still has the advantage of the use of his hands, and perhaps could be afforded an extra ‘protection’ – - if required, to make it more difficult for a forward to too early occuppy/block the goalies space (like basketball, 3 seconds in the key).

btw – Millster – - this is a serious question in jest – - you might be able to answer for me – - the game is defensively geared enough………..why are the ‘rights’ of the defender so important…………..people praise goals………people hollar ‘goooaaalll’ more than they hollar ‘blllloooockk’ or ‘saaavve’ – - – soccer magazines are titled ‘goal’………people go to see goals – - – surely…………….the defender is that negative stick in the mud who isn’t any good at finishing off so gets put up back…………….why does he deserve so much consideration (passive or otherwise)??

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Sam said | January 14th 2009 @ 5:03pm | Report comment

I agree. Get rid of the passive offside rule. Smart teams will be able to exploit it in attack, and an attacking player can ‘fake’ being part of a move and then all of a sudden pull out at the last second making himself defunct from the play. Now how do you judge if this player is passive or not? Also a good offside trap played by a defence can be broken because of a subjective decision made by a referee or linesman.

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Pippinu said | January 14th 2009 @ 6:15pm | Report comment

Sam
offside decisions are already substantially guess work – and that’s got nothing to do with the existence or otherwise of the passive offside rule (which is a nothing issue in the scheme of things).

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Zip Zip said | January 15th 2009 @ 8:06pm | Report comment

Junior

How about trying to post one article without a dig at the great and noble game of Rugby Union.

The green fields of the GPS are where our nations future leaders are moulded into men of substance.

Without Rugger how will the your betters be able to put doen the revolution when it comes.

To give you credit though, no one undertsnds passivity like you. As I understand it you have built a whole lifestyle around it.

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Derryn said | January 30th 2009 @ 5:24pm | Report comment

I’m not normally one for big rule changes in sport, but getting rid of the the offside rule in Football could be great for the game. It would obviously need to be introduced slowly i.e move up from local to state etc.. but I think it would take a lot of guess work out of the game for all involved. Defenders and Attackers currently don’t know from week to week the linesman’s interpretation of the passive rule. The linesmen and women will not have to try and keep an eye on multiple players positioning at a time, which is nearly impossible to do. Any wonder a lot of decisions turn out to be wrong on video after multiple viewings. I can fully understand why the referees/linesmen often make mistakes.
Getting rid of the offside rule does work very well for Hockey. Could do for Football as well. Probably wont happen because of too much resistance to change, but it’s worth at least a trial.

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dasilva said | January 30th 2009 @ 5:34pm | Report comment

Remove offsides and you never see the beauty of cambiasso goal ever again.

I would accept the numerous offside mistakes if it takes away goals like that.

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Sam said | January 30th 2009 @ 5:56pm | Report comment

Derryn

Totally moving the offside rule would just be a bad move. It would turn out to be more like Aussie Rules which I really don’t want (no offence intended). Can you imagine one or two tall strikers standing right alongside the keeper with a long ball being punted up in the hope that one of the strikers can ping his head to it.

This was probably how football originally began but then changed due to the obvious predictable nature of the game. The Maradona’s or Ronaldo’s would have taken up another sport if the game stayed like this.

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Midfielder said | January 30th 2009 @ 7:34pm | Report comment

As bad as it is and I have gained by offside rulings and lost on offside rulings. But its part of the game and would change it to much.

As for passive it is a tough call, but remember when someone would be 40 meters from play and offside was called.

But Junior you do raise an interesting point.. I would steal a rugby trick … when the linne sees a player in a passive offside position he could raise the non flag hand thereby advising everyone he has seen the passive offside.. this would take most of the argument out as by way of letting the spectators know he has seen it.

As an aside ..One of my best mates “Striker 9″ if you ever read this mate .. well he has never forgiven me two years ago in the final we where locked at 1 all 10 minutes to go.. Striker 9 runs on to a perfect pass and bang first touch like a bullet into goal .. I scream he was off side F*** ing” all day F**ing day its the same player every f**ing match ref awards the offside when the linne puts up the flag… one of the full backs was still standing on the back post he was on side by about 20 meters.. They yelled screamed and ranted started pushing and shoving me so ref sends there sweeper off for his abuse … They have totally lost it by know… I get the ball draw half their team lay it off to the right mid and bang goal we win 2-1… Striker 9 still shook my hand after the match and we had a beer after after we followed Blacktown Demons to The Northern Spirit and then Mariners we are very good mates still although Striker 9 still swears revenge.

We go on to win the grand final … last season we meet again .. they smashed us bad about 4 nil I think and striker 9 scored a hatrick .. but two of his goals were offside … so swings and round abouts .. just you want the swing in the big games.

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