There is increasing confusion over VAR, as while an IFAB representative changes earlier comments, UEFA’s Roberto Rosetti insists offside must be “clear and obvious.”
Video Assistant Referee technology is now used in Europe’s top leagues as well as the Champions League, but debate is raging on whether it should disallow goals for what Premier League pundits have called ‘an armpit offside.’
There is increasing confusion over VAR, as while an IFAB representative changes earlier comments, UEFA’s Roberto Rosetti insists offside must be “clear and obvious.”
Video Assistant Referee technology is now used in Europe’s top leagues as well as the Champions League, but debate is raging on whether it should disallow goals for what Premier League pundits have called ‘an armpit offside.’
International Football Association Board general secretary Lukas Brud told the BBC and Associated Press that “people are trying to be too forensic” with offside and “the original decision should stand” if it took several camera angles to calculate the most marginal position.
Brud later changed his tone in another interview with sportschau.de, pointing out “even if it’s only an inch, offside is offside.”
Now there is further confusion with UEFA’s chief refereeing officer Rosetti insisting there ought to be a certain tolerance.
“You mainly notice VAR when it’s not there,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “VAR is indispensable, a guarantee of justice, but it mustn’t alter the spirit and fluidity of the game. We want VAR to intervene only when the images show a clear error, not to re-referee games.”
In the Premier League in particular there have been calls to loosen the regulation of offside when it’s a matter of inches.
“Any part of the body, excluding the arm, that is closer to the goal-line than both the ball and the penultimate opponent is offside. Therefore, in theory, a millimetre is enough.
“But for VAR, in some borderline situations, it’s complicated to determine a couple of centimetres. If to evaluate an offside you need several minutes to position the lines, and it is genuinely difficult to evaluate whether it was offside, it’s best to leave the decision to those on the field.
“The IFAB protocol does state a decision should only be changed if the images show a clear and obvious error. If a decision takes over three minutes with 10-15 replays and four or five different camera angles, it means this is not a clear and obvious error, but a subjective interpretation that VAR should not be correcting.”
Rosetti also discussed the interpretation of handball rules and latest guidelines for these situations.
“The objective is to find consistency and uniformity of decisions, while taking the movement of players into account. It is unnatural to defend with arms clamped behind your back, so if the arm is in a natural position for the movement, it is not punishable.
“The IFAB tried to clarify some parameters for what is punishable, including an arm kept level with or above the shoulder, or used to amplify the outline of the body to block a cross or shot.
“However, whether it is voluntary and the arm moves towards the ball remains unchanged. The only real change we made was punishing handball even if accidental when scoring or creating a scoring opportunity.”