[Steven Gottlieb]

Responding to Lawfiveguy, the proposed change would have no impact on the way offside is called whenever the goalkeeper is the closest defender to the goal-line. In that case, the attacker who is ahead of the ball simply keeps himself onside by staying even with or behind the second to last defender (that is, behind any other defensive player on the field, since the keeper always counts as the second defender when the GK is closest to the goal, by the current rule). The proposed change would make it easier to call the offside violation and to recognize offside whenever the keeper has moved out from the goal-line and is no longer the closest defender to goal, because the AR would not have to count 2 defending bodies who are even with or closer to goal than an attacker, but only make sure that at the moment the ball was touched or played by a teammate of the attacker, the right color jersey of any single defender was closer to goal than any offensive players involved in play. It seems much fairer and more sporting to me NOT to consider an attacking player offside when there is any defensive field player closer to the goal-line than that attacking player.