on the sidelines

Idioms  

1. Observing rather than taking part, out of the action, as in Bolivia's neighbors remained on the sidelines, waiting to see which faction in the dispute would prevail. This idiom comes from sports. The sidelines are the two lines defining the sides of the court or playing field and the area immediately beyond them where, in such sports as football, the non-playing team members sit. [First half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

“Japan’s plan for government bond issuance is meticulously designed,” Satsuki Katayama says in a Bloomberg interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

From The Wall Street Journal

Until the U.S. and the Latin American country come to a deal on a legal framework for oil contracts and sanctions are lifted, most of the industry will stay on the sidelines.

From The Wall Street Journal

The slowdown in the measures closely watched by policymakers suggests the central bank can stay on the sidelines after keeping interest rates on hold at the last policy meeting.

From The Wall Street Journal

Given the global arguments over borders and sovereign power from Greenland to Caracas to the Donbas, and the world leader's present, it is not impossible to envisage some sort of summit like Yalta - the 1945 meeting that gathered the leaders of the US, UK and Russia to plot the defeat of Germany - on the sidelines.

From BBC

After a formative decade at NFL Films, he took what he learned on the sidelines of football games and applied it to documentaries on everything from an Iditarod racer to a Neil Diamond tribute band.

From The Wall Street Journal