Offside (sport)

For the term for one half of the field in cricket, see Off side.
Clemens Schüttengruber, referee of Austria; here as assistant referee, showing the position of an offside.
The blue forward on the left of the diagram is in an offside position as he is in front of both the second-to-last defender (marked by the dotted line) and the ball. Note that this does not necessarily mean they are committing an offside offence.

Offside is a rule used by several different team sports regulating aspects of player positioning. It is particularly used in field sports with rules deriving from the various codes of football, such as association football, rugby union and rugby league, and in similar 'stick and ball' sports e.g. ice hockey, broomball, field hockey and bandy.