How to tweak handball and offside rules to fit football in the VAR age

As EURO 2024 goes on, the complaints about VAR have flared up again and Susy Campanale has a suggestion of how to fix the handball and offside rules that fit the modern game.

I have been fortunate to largely watch football on Italian television, so am accustomed to pundits and commentators who actually know the rules. It is when I occasionally stray into the world of English TV that I realise just why the fans are so irritated with the very concept of VAR, and it’s largely because those who are meant to describe all of this to them don’t know any more about the regulations than the average bloke in the pub. Suffice to say, that’s not a good situation to be in and will not help anyone understand the game.

Having said all of that, there are definitely areas where the regulatory bodies can improve, because the problem is that the rules were written for a sport that is now a historical artefact – before VAR. No, Wolves, we are not going back to those so-called halcyon days when someone could punch the ball into the net and qualify for a World Cup, or a ball that most of the stadium could see was over the line is not given as a goal. Scrapping a Video Assistant Referee would be idiotic in an age where every fan in the stands and coach on the touchline has his own version on a smartphone at his fingertips.

Most complaints about VAR are in fact not about the technology itself, but the fact that we can now impose the rules so precisely. The Premier League doesn’t yet have SAOT (Semi-Automatic Offside) and is learning at EURO 2024 just how quick and accurate it can be. We’ve had it in Serie A as early as January 2023, so we’re more accustomed to those little images of a teensy toe poking over the highlighted line. I realise it can be somewhat galling to have a goal chalked off for that, but at least it’s consistent and quick, which you cannot really say for drawing the lines.

New rules for football in the VAR age

So, how do we solve this frustration? By tweaking the rules to fit a game that can now be analysed in precise detail with VAR technology. The offside rule is meant to ensure the striker does not have an unfair advantage and we can all agree that a toe is not going to make a world of difference.

So the authorities can just add a margin of error into the SAOT, let’s say 2 inches at most, that should end the scourge of the millimetre offside call. Half a boot or half a head is an advantage and must be taken into account. It’s all written into the programming, so the computer analysis will do it just as quickly as it does now, no need for the human VAR to do anything.

As for handball, the rule seems to change every single season with different interpretations given to the officials by IFAB, so another tweak won’t make much difference. Personally, I’m not so sure the ‘making the silhouette bigger’ description is that far off the mark, but it’s still leading to too many spot-kicks when a defender was simply jumping.

My suggestion would be to create a new punishment for unintentional handball in the penalty area – an indirect free kick. This ensures that having a shot or free kick charged down in the box doesn’t get entirely ignored, because that would certainly damage the attacking team, but it is not as clear-cut an opportunity to score as a penalty.

How does that sound?