adminbody and comes into effect from today sees a considerable change to the wording of Law 11 and alters what assistant referees must take into consideration when deciding whether a forward is ‘interfering with an opponent’ or ‘gaining an advantage’.
On the surface, the alteration to one of football’s most-talked about and controversial laws appears to reduce the uncertainty — but Sportsmail can reveal that English officials, who met for their annual summer conference this weekend, are privately worried the change will only breed further confusion among players and fans, placing the spotlight once again onto the officials.
The law change, which was presented to officials at a conference named ‘Realising Your Potential’, omits the ambiguous wording of ‘‘obstructing the opponent’s line of movements or making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee, deceives or distracts an opponent’’.
This part of the offside law, referring to what constitutes ‘interfering with an opponent’ had previously been left too open to the subjective interpretation of officials and has now been replaced by ‘‘challenging an opponent for the ball.’’ —Mailonline
Online Reporter