Houghton: Offside rules are flawed
Ray Houghton has expressed his concerns that modern interpretations of the offside law are killing the art of defending.
And the former Republic of Ireland midfielder has accused FIFA of getting their priorities wrong in their attempts to spread the global appeal of the game.
Houghton was reacting to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s second goal against Fulham last weekend which secured Manchester United a 3-2 win at Craven Cottage.
The Manchester United striker allowed play to catch him up before slotting in a cross from Park Ji-Sung and Houghton believes the tactic makes defending impossible.
“Van Nistelrooy’s second was a great example of how flawed the ’active’ and ’non-active’ dimension to the offside rule is,” Houghton said.
“One minute Van Nistelrooy is in an offside position but he’s deemed to be ’not active’. But then, when the ball is crossed, all of a sudden he’s active again. It’s just nonsense.
“As a central defender, you have no chance. You can’t run the risk of ignoring a deadly striker like Van Nistelrooy, even if he is supposedly ’not active’.”
Houghton blamed the footballing authorities for introducing a law just because it guarantees more goals.
“It seems to me that everyone is interested in making football more exciting, rather than making it better,” Houghton told fulhamfc.com.
“This dimension to the offside rule has killed the art of defending – how do you coach defending now?”
The offside ruling, introduced in November 2003, states that being in an offside position is not an offence in itself, so a player can operate beyond the last line of defence providing he is not interfering with play or gaining an advantage.
Van Nistelrooy has become something of a master at exploiting the law, which comes down to a linesman’s interpretation of phases of play.
Against Fulham, Van Nistelrooy was offside when Wayne Rooney sent Park clear, but by the next phase of play – the South Korean’s cross – he was back on-side and free to score his second of the game.
