Soccer Offside Rule: Position, Offence and Common Exceptions
An attacker is only penalized after being in an offside position when a teammate plays the ball and then interfering with play or an opponent, or gaining an advantage; position alone is not an offence.
Timeline
- Teammate touches the ball: Freeze the positions at the first point of contact, except a goalkeeper throw uses the last point of contact.
- Active involvement: Decide whether the positioned attacker plays the ball, interferes with an opponent or gains an advantage from a rebound, deflection or save.
- Decision: Award an indirect free kick for an offside offence; allow play if the player never becomes actively involved.
Offside has two separate questions: position and offence. An attacker is in an offside position when a playable part of the head, body or feet is in the opponents’ half and nearer the goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. The halfway line itself does not count as the opponents’ half, hands and arms are ignored, and being level is onside. [1][2]
Position is judged at the moment a teammate plays or touches the ball, using the first point of contact under the 2026/27 Law, except that a goalkeeper throw is judged at the last point of contact. A television freeze-frame therefore looks backward to the teammate’s touch, not to when the attacker receives the pass or when the assistant raises the flag. [1][2]
Being in an offside position is not itself an offence. The player is penalized only after becoming involved in active play: playing or touching the teammate’s ball, interfering with an opponent, or gaining an advantage from a rebound, deflection or deliberate save. A positioned player who does not affect the play can be ignored while an onside teammate continues the attack. [1][2][3]
Interfering with an opponent includes clearly blocking the opponent’s line of vision, challenging for the ball, clearly attempting to play a nearby ball when that affects an opponent, or making another obvious action that clearly affects the opponent’s ability to play it. Proximity alone is not enough; the referee evaluates the player’s actual impact under the listed criteria. [1][3]
A defender’s deliberate play can begin a new phase, even if the pass or clearance is inaccurate, when the defender had control and a real possibility to pass, gain possession or clear. A mere deflection does not reset offside, and neither does a deliberate save of a ball going into or very close to goal. This control-versus-deflection judgment explains many disputed clips. [1][3]
There is no offside offence when a player receives the ball directly from a goal kick, throw-in or corner kick. Offside can apply after a later teammate touch. It also cannot apply to an attacker wholly in their own half at the deciding touch. When an offence occurs, the restart is an indirect free kick from where the offside offence occurred, subject to the Laws’ restart provisions. [1][2]
A useful viewing method is to pause at the teammate’s contact, locate the ball and second-last opponent, then ask whether the attacker later became actively involved. Do not use the goalkeeper as an automatic reference because another defender may be nearer the goal. Competition technology may assist officials, but the legal test remains Law 11 and the applicable edition should be checked when rules change. [1][2][3]