Ninh explains – the Offside Rule The offside rule in association football (or soccer to some of you) is the rule in all of sports that confuses the biggest number of fans.
But it's not difficult to understand, or spot, if you know what you're looking for.
Firstly, you have to know what it actually is.
It's a rule to prevent opposing players from just hanging around the other team's goalkeeper all game, so that when the ball comes near them, they just poke it into the net.
As you can imagine, this would make an incredibly unfair and boring game.
So, the offside rule is there to prevent that.
The official definition of the offside rule is this, but it's better to explain the offside rule in this flow chart which consist of two parts.
Part One – Are they in an offside position?
To determine an offside position, an imaginary line is drawn from the second to last opponent.
The last opponent is usually, (but not always) the goalkeeper.
