[zalew]

He forgets about one thing - pro football is not managed by a single referee because it'd be impossible, he has 2 side referees to help. Also, in amateur (edit: for fun, not non-pro leagues) football you usually play without offsides or almost without them; while in pro there is a ridiculous situation where a rule meant to prevent static play (standing in front of the goal waiting for a pass) is often ripping the game of dynamic (halted actions because the side referee saw that one player's foot was 10cm pass the line of defence).

Football is scaled down mostly because you don't need expensive infrastructure to play and train - 2 sticks in the ground or draw lines on a fence and you're ready to kick - no equipment (baseball, hockey) besides the ball itself, no need to build anything (basketball, hockey). I think that's a far more important factor in football popularity than the rules set.

[trin_]

where? maybe for 7-10 year old kids but even low games that have only 1 referee will be played with offside (at least thats my experience playing until the age of 16) i think the DFB (german football association) requires 3 referees starting from the 7th or 8th league. and below that they just dont have the manpower.

[zalew]

you're right, by amateur I meant the first level of engaging with sport, not amateur leagues. sorry for the confusion. made an edit.

[pbhjpbhj]

Certainly when I played Sunday League and at school we had linesmen. Junior school (<11yo) we played five-a-side rules really; you can't play on a full pitch for full duration at that age anyway.

We'd have kickabouts with more players (10+ on pitch) at senior school and play offside sometimes, occasionally someone would ref but more often it was reffing by consensus/honesty and with reduced players it was hard to get off-side to work, normally we'd just accuse someone of "goal hanging" and it would be enough.