Offside rule

[Donegal Hibby]

When a player is clearly offside rather than the lines man / woman flagging the game is allowed to continue . I think this is putting players at risk.

Another incident because of this that I’m after reading about , many were criticising the Forrest Chairman for his confrontation with the manager on the field after the Leicester game ( including myself) but there seems to be more to it than the chairman angry about the result as one of their players was seriously injured ..

Thankfully he’s making good progress and hopefully makes a full recovery …

Time to look at changing this ? ….

https://www.themag.co.uk/2025/05/offside-protocol-putting-players-in-danger-nottingham-forest-newcastle-united-taiwo-awoniyi/

[Danderhall Hibs]

It’s hard to say when it’s “clearly offside” though - look at our goal away to Dundee United a couple of months ago as an example. Letting play go on makes sense - it’s effectively an extension of the advantage rule that’s applied for other fouls?

[danhibees1875]

It's a hard one... letting play go on unnecessarily will always have the potential that the phases of play that then would count for nothing anyway could lead to injury etc but as stated above, it's just advantage.

We're probably not far away from a semi-automated solution where the linesman gets a quick beep in his ear and we can have an AI-reviewed decision flagged on-field as quickly as we used to have a human-decision pre-VAR.

[Viva_Palmeiras]

Surely only a matter of time when AI will mean decisions on offside can be made in he blink of an eye.
David Dickinson and his cronies take. Out the equation on that one.

im no fan of AI but this is one instance when rules can be applied and machine learning can “understand” over time whether someone is affecting play from previous data.

I’ve posted previously AI can (albeit in a smaller space) do points scoring in boxing quite incredible.

[Viva_Palmeiras]

There’s reasons for it but such as the pundits may bleat about it only being a matter of time til serious injury that it’s become part of the over-analysed gravy train. I hate this about modern football but each to their own.

[JohnM1875]

Surely only a matter of time when AI will mean decisions on offside can be made in he blink of an eye.
David Dickinson and his cronies take. Out the equation on that one.

im no fan of AI but this is one instance when rules can be applied and machine learning can “understand” over time whether someone is affecting play from previous data.

I’ve posted previously AI can (albeit in a smaller space) do points scoring in boxing quite incredible.

Which means it'll be introduced in Scotland in 2040 and we’ll only have the budget to afford the A

[DH1875]

Rule still confuses me. Linesman in the St Mirren game put his flag up a few times not letting play develop. One where Hoilett was in on goal and flagged particularly annoying as he was onside.

[Victor]

Rule still confuses me. Linesman in the St Mirren game put his flag up a few times not letting play develop. One where Hoilett was in on goal and flagged particularly annoying as he was onside.

We have been victims of this a few times this season. There seems to be no rationale as to when they do or don’t do it unless, they only doing it when it involves Hibs!

[Viva_Palmeiras]

Which means it'll be introduced in Scotland in 2040 and we’ll only have the budget to afford the A
True.

[matty_f]

It’s hard to say when it’s “clearly offside” though - look at our goal away to Dundee United a couple of months ago as an example. Letting play go on makes sense - it’s effectively an extension of the advantage rule that’s applied for other fouls?

The Dundee United game is a great example, I didn’t celebrate Hoilett’s goal because I thought he was so far offside that it would be inevitable that it would be called back for the foul (which it was).
Obviously we know now that VAR checked and he was actually onside when the ball was played and so the goal was given (and we definitely celebrated it then in the away end!).

There are far, far more examples of this scenario than there are of players getting injured, and you’re right that it’s essentially an extension of the advantage rule - players could get injured in a phase of play immediately after a foul is committed but advantage is played, so by extension should referees no longer play advantage?

Do we look at all scenarios where players can get injured? Smith dived into the post against Dundee United at Easter Rd during our win the other week, will we look at banning goalkeepers from diving?

There’s inherent risk of injury in sport, players get injured warming up, running, jumping, making tackles etc.

In this case, if it’s so obviously offside did the player need to make the decision to slide in to the post? They’ll be told to “play to the whistle” so whether that’s offside or an advantage for another foul, or the referee missing a foul in the build up that’s picked up by VAR or the linesman missing the ball going out of play that needs called back etc and this is just an extension of it.

My own view is that the current process is the best option - I don’t want to see an attack stopped prematurely or a goal not given the opportunity to be scored by an incorrect offside call (which happens a lot) for the sake of a tiny percentage of incidents where someone’s been hurt.

[beensaidbefore]

Rule still confuses me. Linesman in the St Mirren game put his flag up a few times not letting play develop. One where Hoilett was in on goal and flagged particularly annoying as he was onside.

There was another late in the first half where the St Mirren boy was clearly offside, but Obita had to make a clearance just in case. This led to a period of pressure on the edge of our box, when what should really have happened is we were given a free kick. It's unfairly punishing the defending team in situations like that

[CentreLine]

I realise we have a cheap version but the, recently upgraded, EPL version of VAR gives a much clearer indication of off side. It is also almost instant with the decision. Watching the program, Ref Watch on Sky sport, of course, it features regularly and seems to leave very little room for argument.
I’m not sure the SPFL could afford it but it’s got to be worth considering.

[JeMeSouviens]

It’s hard to say when it’s “clearly offside” though - look at our goal away to Dundee United a couple of months ago as an example. Letting play go on makes sense - it’s effectively an extension of the advantage rule that’s applied for other fouls?

Except that in this case, the team getting the advantage is the one that committed the foul.

I think it mostly works as long as the linesman flags when the goalscoring or not has happened. It seems that's not always the case though. Sometimes fairly clear offsides (albeit not checked) result in corners, pressure staying on the defence and ultimately sometimes goals that wouldn't have happened.

[matty_f]

Except that in this case, the team getting the advantage is the one that committed the foul.

I think it mostly works as long as the linesman flags when the goalscoring or not has happened. It seems that's not always the case though. Sometimes fairly clear offsides (albeit not checked) result in corners, pressure staying on the defence and ultimately sometimes goals that wouldn't have happened.

That shouldn’t happen as the flag should still go up at the end of the attacking phase of play - so rather than flagging for a corner, the linesman should flag the offside.

Where it gets muddled is where the offside player doesn’t become active (for example the defender gets a touch on the ball before it reaches the offside player and it goes out for a corner - clearly you’d want the offside to be given there but because the player never became active, the corner is given - that’s a different thing to this though.)

There shouldn’t be any instances where the linesman keeps the flag down to let play continue when they’ve seen the offside (which they’ll have communicated to the referee, as well) and then not gone back to put the flag up at the appreciate moment (the end of the attack).

[greenlex]

When a player is clearly offside rather than the lines man / woman flagging the game is allowed to continue . I think this is putting players at risk.

Another incident because of this that I’m after reading about , many were criticising the Forrest Chairman for his confrontation with the manager on the field after the Leicester game ( including myself) but there seems to be more to it than the chairman angry about the result as one of their players was seriously injured ..

Thankfully he’s making good progress and hopefully makes a full recovery …

Time to look at changing this ? ….

https://www.themag.co.uk/2025/05/offside-protocol-putting-players-in-danger-nottingham-forest-newcastle-united-taiwo-awoniyi/
I think it’s fine as it is. As said elsewhere it’s an extension of the advantagerule. Allow the play to continue until its conclusion. You can’t legislate or mitigate for injury. They happen all the time offside or not.

[JeMeSouviens]

That shouldn’t happen as the flag should still go up at the end of the attacking phase of play - so rather than flagging for a corner, the linesman should flag the offside.

Where it gets muddled is where the offside player doesn’t become active (for example the defender gets a touch on the ball before it reaches the offside player and it goes out for a corner - clearly you’d want the offside to be given there but because the player never became active, the corner is given - that’s a different thing to this though.)

There shouldn’t be any instances where the linesman keeps the flag down to let play continue when they’ve seen the offside (which they’ll have communicated to the referee, as well) and then not gone back to put the flag up at the appreciate moment (the end of the attack).

I know it shouldn't but I think it sometimes does (without being able to reference any concrete examples, so there's a good chance I'm talking **** :greengrin).