Reuters Soccer Blog

Football still offside in attitude to women

The British media furore over two television presenters’ sexist comments over a lineswoman at a Premier League match at the weekend has thrown the spotlight on the subject of women in soccer – be it on the pitch or off.

Sky Sports duo Richard Keys and Andy Gray have apologised for saying female officials “don’t know the offside rule” when they were talking about lineswoman Sian Massey at Saturday’s match between Wolves and Liverpool when they thought their microphones were switched off.

She in fact made the correct call on a big borderline decision that allowed a Liverpool goal to count.

Even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t be because she was female – or is someone going to tell me it was a woman who missed Frank Lampard’s “goal” that clearly crossed the line but was not given in the England v Germany match at last year’s World Cup?

The notion you need testicles to get your mind around the offside rule is sadly not restricted to Massey’s case, as female soccer reporters like me find out from time to time, even though things have of course improved over the years.

I have yet to be asked to explain the offside rule – although I am quite excited about the prospect I might be. One of my friends, a football reporter on a British national newspaper, was asked a couple of years ago by a Premier League manager at an awards ceremony to do just that.

She actually went along with his request but to this day regrets not thinking of a comeback along the lines of “You don’t understand the offside rule? No wonder your team keep losing!” I have plenty of ripostes up my sleeve for the poor person who tries to ask me.

It really is time to call in the cameras now

There has been a long-running debate about video technology in football and surely the time has now come to assist referees and linesmen with offside decisions.

This week’s Champions League matches featured several howlers. Both of Dimitar Berbatov’s goals for Manchester United against Celtic were shown to be offside by TV replays yet the Belgium linesman kept his flag down.

He then raised his flag for offside against Wayne Rooney when seconds later a replay revealed that Rooney was actually behind the last defender. (more…)

Suspicious Italians demand Dutch courage

Italians are suspicious of everything, or so it seems. Several of my friends in Milan refuse to eat pasta or pizza outside Italy because they don’t believe it will taste the same.

They are just as circumspect when it comes to soccer.

The Dutch have already qualified for the Euro 2008 quarter-finals and meet second-placed Romania in their final Group C match in Berne on Tuesday. World champions Italy need the Dutch to get a result to have any chance of going above the Romanians by beating or drawing with France.  

The Italians are terrified that Netherlands coach Marco van Basten will put out a weakened side or the Dutch players will try to avoid injury and not give 100 percent. 

Azzurri fans already think they have been robbed by the officials who allowed Ruud van Nistelrooy’s goal in the 3-0 defeat by the Dutch and disallowed Luca Toni’s valid header in Friday’s 1-1 draw with Romania. Incidentally, that was played on Friday 13th and was the 13th game of the 13th European championship. But having said that, the unlucky number in Italy is actually 17…the date of the France game.

All this follows years of conspiracy theories which Italians have dreamt up to explain their early exit from tournaments.  

Should ref have called Van Nistelrooy goal offside?

Some you win and some you lose but it looks like almost every journalist and most TV commentators, as well as the Italian players, were totally wrong in claiming Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s opening goal against Italy in Netherlands’ 3-0 win in Berne on Monday was offside.

UEFA have confirmed that referee Peter Frojdfeldt and his assistant Stefan Wittberg were absolutely correct in awarding the goal. UEFA general secretary David Taylor said the ref interpreted Law 11 relating to offside correctly and the reason why is this:

Even though Italian defender Chrstian Panucci was off the pitch after an accidental collision with his own goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, he was deemed to still be in active play and therefore playing Van Nistelrooy onside.

His position is “assumed” to be on the goal-line and therefore Van Nistelrooy had two opposing players between him and the goal when he scored. The law is vague on the issue and Taylor admits it does not specifically cover incidents such as the one that occurred last night.

It also raises a whole lot of questions. If the law is not specific on the issue and open to interpretation by the referee, then shouldn’t it be more specific? Shouldn’t it be re-written?

The officials might have applied the universally accepted interpretation of the law and been exonerated … but is the universal interpretation really in the spirit of the game? You have to bear in mind of course that a defender should not be allowed to step outside the field of play behind the  goal-line to render the opposing attacker offside.