accidental offside touch

[Robert Goodman]

A player in the opponent's half of the field is offside when a teammate passes the ball forward, aiming at another teammate. The offside player is not looking at the ball when it's played but at a linesman or opponent in the other direction, to see where he has to get to to get onside, and is moving toward his own goal line when he runs into the ball.

(1) The ball just grazes him as it continues into space where its intended receiver runs onto it. Looks like promising attacking play, but no better than if the offside player's touch had not occurred.

(2) The ball makes solid contact with the offside player and bounces back toward his team's goal line, and his team regains control of it.

What's the call in each case?

[sbatten]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

(1) The ball just grazes him as it continues into space where its intended receiver runs onto it. Looks like promising attacking play, but no better than if the offside player's touch had not occurred.

(2) The ball makes solid contact with the offside player and bounces back toward his team's goal line, and his team regains control of it.

Aren't both examples of IFAB Law 11, "interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate"? That is, both appear to be an offside offense.

The law doesn't specify whether the touch was intentional or not. And in case (1), it is speculative to say that that the offside player's touch had almost no effect -- it was a touch that (by virtue of touching it) interfered with the play.

Newbie ref here, so I may be missing some intricacies.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by sbatten

Aren't both examples of IFAB Law 11, "interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate"? That is, both appear to be an offside offense.

The law doesn't specify whether the touch was intentional or not. And in case (1), it is speculative to say that that the offside player's touch had almost no effect -- it was a touch that (by virtue of touching it) interfered with the play.

Newbie ref here, so I may be missing some intricacies.

If it interfered with play by mere virtue of touching it, why did they write, "interfering with play by"? If the question of whether a touch interfered with play wasn't meant to be judged independently as a fact, why'd they include that language instead of just "playing or touching"? It would seem they anticipated touches that interfered with play, and touches that don't.