Maximum Bob

Chief footie referee Keith “Hack it” Hackett has opined that the BBC’s Match of the Day pundits don’t understand the offside rule. I have long thought it the case that most of the pundits on TV and radio don’t understand most of the rules of the game, which is why they perpetually complain, “He went for the ball”, when Duane Gobshite glides in horizontally with his studs showing and gets a yellow card for his trouble. “That was a harsh decision, Alan.”

Anyway, the source of the offside confusion is the is he or is he not interfering with play conundrum. This is a difficult one, when combined with the give the attacking side the benefit of the doubt policy, because it involves holding two ideas in your head at the same time. Some teams have taken to distracting the goalie during set pieces, a tactic learned at the under-7s Sunday League, which you have to say ought to constitute interfering with play.

Anyway, Lawro was giving it some on 5Live, opining that the assistant referee’s job is harder than that of the referee, at which point I had an idea. They should just do away with the offside rule altogether, allowing strikers to hang around wherever they want. The quid pro quo on this should be that the goalkeeper is allowed to punch the (would-have-been-offside) striker in the face. As long as he’s “going for the ball”, of course.