No Faith in the Moral Standards of the Players as a Group

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The question is whether a player is in an offside position when the ball is played (passed or shot). So if someone takes a shot and a rebound falls to a player who was in an offside position, she is just as offside as she would have been if the ball had been passed to her. The reason is the same, really.

This is from FIFA's Laws of the Game (Law 11):



What I don't understand, conceptually, is why there is no offsides on a throw-in.

Right - but the reason doesn't make as much sense because there is an intervening influence - the goal or (usually) the goalkeeper.

Also, the rule as written says "involved in active play" and "gains an advantage by being in that position" - take for example a shot from one side, with a player in an offside position on the far side (well beyond the goal keeper). On the shot, that player, while in an offside position is not actively involved in the play. Yet if the shot hit the crossbar and fell to that player s/he would be called offside, but only because of subsequent developments (hitting the crossbar) not because at the time the ball was played the player was offside.