OR: How Leaving The Blocks .001 Seconds Too Soon Is The Same As Having A Toe Offside In Soccer/Football
The World Cup is football’s quadrennial international event. The event includes 32 countries playing 64 matches over 29 days. The first two weeks are a veritable feast with 48 contests in 13 days. It’s a football fans’ nirvana comparable to track fans’ 10 days of the World Championships.
Watching both, I am struck by the less than obvious parallels between false starts in the running events and offside in football. Similar intent, similar problems for officials, similar frustrations for fans. Let’s review the offside rule for the newcomers, then dive into the similarities with false start rules.
Law XI – Offside
Perhaps we should start with an explanation of the offside rule. The language in the rule book (real name: The Laws of the Game) aren’t that long but application can be problematic. Many long-time fans can’t get it right. Ted Lasso still struggles with the rule. There are two key parts – offside position and offside offence. In short, a player is an offside position if they are nearer the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last opponent. There are exceptions and refinements (e.g. hands and arms don’t count in the determination and you can’t be in an offside position in your half of the field). But offside is only called when a player in an offside position becomes involved in the play (e.g. by receiving the ball from a teammate, interfering with an opponent, challenging for the ball, among other things). Full text of Law XI is at this link.
A Matter of Fairness
Both rules exist because we don’t want athletes getting an unfair advantage. In running events, everybody has to start at the same time otherwise there is no way to determine who was faster. In practice this means we want runners to react to, not anticipate, the gun. Otherwise, the runner who can “guess” when the gun will be fired gets an advantage.
In football, the offside law prevents players from hanging by the opponents’ goal. Without the rule, the game would degenerate into a boring contest of long kicks between either end of the field with little midfield play, dribbling or passing. Okay, let us pause for the wags to get off their joke that the game is still boring.
Changing Technology
For some time, both infractions were called by the naked eye. In track, the starter fired a second gun if they believed a runner had false started based on what they saw. In football, the assistant referee (the one with the flag running along the sideline [they call it the touchline]), raised their flag when a player in an offside position became involved in active play.
Track went electronic a while ago and have gotten more and more sophisticated. The starter does not go on visuals but is notified by a computer if an athlete has left the blocks “too early (we’ll come back to that definition in a minute).” Now we frequently see false starts called when there’s nothing obvious to the naked eye.
Football took some time but recently went to a system call Video Assistant Referee or (VAR). The calls are still made on the field but in plays of consequences (e.g., a goal is scored), the play is reviewed by a referee in a booth somewhere. Like track, the technology for identifying if a player might have been in an offside position has become more sophisticated, first with the VAR drawing lines and now with a semi-automated process that helps the VAR determine the exact position of the player. Details on that new system are at this link. VAR, and the enhancements have led to numerous offside calls that would never have been spotted by on-field referees.
Defining the Threshold for an Infraction
With all this technology, what could go wrong? Well, in some ways it works really well. A false start and offside are no longer a judgment call. Either you started faster than allowable/were in offside position or you weren’t. Officials can simply apply the rules as written.
The issue becomes defining the threshold. In track, the bright line is drawn at .1 seconds. The thinking is that humans cannot react to a signal faster than that. So, if an athlete’s reaction time to the gun is measured at .099 seconds, that is by rule a false start. We can (and do) argue about whether .1 is the appropriate standard. But in some ways, it doesn’t matter. If the allowable reaction time is dropped to .08 seconds, .0799, or .001 of a second is a violation.
The same issues arise for offside. Most of the time, the standard for the VAR to intervene is that there was a “clear and obvious error.” This works for subjective judgments like whether a foul was committed. But offside position is not subjective – you are or you aren’t. So even if the attacker’s toe is offside, the VAR must rule the play offside. Clear and obvious can’t apply here. I suppose you could provide some allowable range (e.g. needs to be offside by 10 cm) but like changing the allowable reaction time, you just change the specific plays that become controversial.
Decades Trying to Solve the Problem
The issues have bedeviled officials for a long time. The rules surrounding false starts have been tweaked multiple times. Used to be you got two. Then you got one. Then the electronics entered the game. We suspect there will be constant tweaking.
Same with offside. Remember that the hand and arm don’t count in the determination of offside position (because you can’t score a goal using those body parts). But where does the arm end and shoulder begin? Most recently it was decided it was the end of your shirt sleeve. Actually, most of the tweaking of offside rules has been about what constitutes active play and what intervening touches by defenders negate the offside call and not so much about what is offside position.
Frustrated Fans
By the thousands. The DQ of Devon Allen at the World Championships did not go over well. Many point out how this tight level of officiating might alienate the casual fan who just want to see the top athletes. Same thing for football. Many question whether the semi-automated technology provides a false level of precision. Further, you can have delays of several minutes while the VAR looks at the play before a team can celebrate a goal. Again, maybe not the fan-friendliest, especially for the newbies.
On the other hand, keeping Devon Allen in the race would have smacked of favoritism of the worst kind, giving a hometown athlete a pass in front of his fans. The same problem would arise in football – pacify the hometown Arsenal crowd because, well, it was just his toe that was offside. Methinks Spurs fans would go ballistic. In football, I think this is an unwinnable issue. They could drop VAR but then what happens when the referees blow an offside call that was egregious. People would be clamoring for it to come back. Wait, that’s how we got it in the first place. I always chuckle when there’s match in which there is no VAR and the announcers lament that there was no way to go back and check that questionable call.
What To Do?
Hey, I have no clue, I’m just here to point out similarities. Okay, not true. I still referee club soccer matches and would find it unfair to put officials in the position of making up the rules as we go along. Research is ongoing to determine humanly possible reactions times, so I’d expect some loosening of the allowable reaction time. Just know that .001 faster than whatever that time is will still going to be controversial. Likewise, there is probably some way to put an definable range on when an offside call can be overturned but wherever it’s set, there will be controversy surrounding any call just over whatever that threshold is. Hopefully, I’ve given the casual soccer fan some insight into one of the more complicated aspects of the sport. Along the way, maybe I’ve given you some comfort that it’s not just track and field that has tough issues with officiating.
Like following along the beautiful game as much as I do? Check out my musings on EPL, MLS, World Cup, Football Manager, and more at https://bookedforsimulation.blogspot.com/
