Sports Rules

You cannot be offside from a throw-in

Nor from a goal kick or a corner. This is absolute, whatever the positions were, and it is the most commonly forgotten part of the law.

IFAB · Law 11 — Offside

No offside offence

No offside offence: the ball came direct from a throw in.

How it got there

  1. 1.Restart

    decided it

    Direct from a throw in, there is no offside offence — whatever the positions were. This is absolute, and it is the most commonly forgotten part of the law.

Read before relaying this

  • Note

    Hands and arms never count for offside

    For every player including goalkeepers, only parts that could legally score are considered — head, body and feet — and the upper boundary of the arm is the bottom of the armpit. A shoulder in front can decide a call; an outstretched arm cannot.

  • Note

    Level is onside

    The test is NEARER to the goal line than the ball and than the second-last opponent. A player exactly level with either is onside, which is why the tightest calls come down to which side of a line a toe was on.

  • Read this

    The picture freezes when the ball is played, not when it is received

    Position is judged at the moment a team-mate plays or touches the ball. Where the attacker was when the ball ARRIVED is irrelevant, and running onto a ball from an onside position is exactly what the law permits.

  • Read this

    Applying the law is the easy half

    This computed a verdict from positions and judgements you supplied. In a real match the argument is almost never about the procedure — it is about where a shoulder was in the frame the ball was struck, and whether a touch was deliberate. Change those inputs and the answer changes with them.

Change the inputs

Use the form on the home page to move a position and watch the verdict move with it, or call the API or MCP server. This page is also available as markdown.

Related calls

Not an official ruling and not a substitute for a match official. This works through published decision procedures from the inputs you supply; it cannot see the play, and the hard part of a real offside call is almost always judging the inputs rather than applying the rule. Refereeing judgement, video review protocols, and competition-specific variations are outside what this models. Rule texts belong to IFAB and the NHL and are not reproduced.