Football's offside rule is as old as the game's first written laws
When the Football Association wrote its 1863 rulebook, offside was already in it - and far stricter than today.
Modern football was codified on 26 October 1863, when a dozen London clubs met at the Freemasons’ Tavern and formed the Football Association. Its first secretary, solicitor Ebenezer Morley, drafted a single set of Laws of the Game, approved that December - the rules that split “association” football from rugby by banning the carrying of the ball.
An offside law was there from the start, but it was draconian: any attacker ahead of the ball when a teammate played it was offside, much like rugby today. That effectively banned forward passing.
The rule was loosened in stages - by 1866 a player was onside with three opponents between him and the goal - and in 1925 the requirement dropped from three defenders to two, unleashing a flood of goals.
Offside exists to stop “goal-hanging”: loitering by the opponents’ goal waiting for the ball.
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