Ritchell, a fan, asks:
I’ve been watching the Premier League and the Champions League. I’m a little confused as to when the assistant referee raises his flag to indicate offside. More often then not, they wait an exceptionally long time before they raise the flag. When should the AR signal offside?
Answer
Well, you are wording the question in a way that presumes that there ARE “exceptionally long” delays in flagging an offside . The problem is that being “offside” is not an offense and does not violate the Law! The offense only occurs if the player in an offside position acts to interfere with play or an opponent (which IS an offense). Depending on the circumstances, the AR should not flag an offside offense unless and until an attacker actually commits (not merely “might commit” or “could could” or “looks likely to commit”) any of the specific circumstances that turn an offside position into an offside offense.
Does it happen? Yes, of course. But is it common or endemic? No. We say this regarding the games we watch but we are more involved with matches in the US and/or involving US teams rather than elsewhere.
Here are several things to think about, though. If we were to see an offside offense on the field, we would rather that the AR signals after seeing it than signaling before it happens! And here lies something that watchers do not realize – the main reason for an apparent delay in signaling an offside offense is that ARs are trained throughout the world to withhold the flag until an otherwise valid offside offense is “worth” the flag. In other words, officials – both referees and ARs – are guided (in the great majority of cases) to wait until the offense has actually occurred and the offense is going to continue to the benefit of the offender. Raising the flag is NOT a race but a measured attempt to decide if the offense occurred and was not going to immediately disappear due to a seconds-later action which would benefit the non-offending opposing team.
