Soccer

Kenny Archer: VAR has gone VAR too VAR in making marginal offside calls

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Liverpool's Sadio Mane (second right) celebrates his goal against Wolves after it was wrongly ruled out initially.
Liverpool's Sadio Mane (second right) celebrates his goal against Wolves after it was wrongly ruled out initially. Liverpool's Sadio Mane (second right) celebrates his goal against Wolves after it was wrongly ruled out initially.

So that was Christmas and what have you done?

Another year over, a new one just begun.

A very merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year,

Let's hope it's a good one

without any fear

VAR is over

If you want it

VAR is over now

Apologies to John and Yoko, but many football fans would love to sing that song and, most of all, for it be true.

VAR has, as this column pointed out very early in this season, sucked much of the joy out of many goals.

Players, managers, and supporters don’t know whether or not to celebrate goals – or ‘goals’, as they’ve increasingly become known.

The good and the bad of VAR was shown again at Anfield on Sunday when Liverpool hosted Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Reds rightly had a wrongly disallowed goal allowed (and that should still make more sense than many other VAR decisions).

Referee Anthony Taylor’s initial incorrect decision to rule ‘no goal’ was fairly understandable, given that the Liverpool player (Adam Lallana) who provided the assist had stretched out his right arm and the official’s view was from a distance and probably obscured.

Yet it also demonstrated a lack of ‘feel’ for the game that is too often exhibited by referees.

Several Wolves players, including captain Conor Coady, were close enough to Lallana to collide with him (and did) but their appeals for any handball were either minimal or non-existent.

Given how often most players appeal for a throw-in after the ball has gone out off them, such lack of reaction was indicative that there was nothing wrong with the goal (not even the earlier 'handball' from Virgil van Dijk dreamed up by some desperadoes).

Although a decision quite rightly going Liverpool’s way still infuriated the usual suspects, anyone sensible accepted that ruling out the Wolves ‘goal’ before half-time was ridiculous.

Neto stuck the ball in the net – oh! No goal? No way!

The outrage wasn’t just inspired by anti-Liverpool bias this time, even if the decision was technically correct.

Sure, the toe of Jonny, who provided the assist, was marginally offside, but the goal should have stood.

The zealots who declare that ‘offside is offside’ smack of the ‘Brexit means Brexit’ brigade.

The game isn’t one of absolute precision, with margin of error surely having to be considered, due to the split-second differences of deciding when a ball was struck and/or players moving in different directions.

Apart from correct decisions going Liverpool’s way, the biggest issue bothering most fans is the time delay involved.

There are several ways to reduce the damage that VAR is doing, including getting the match referee to study the replay on the pitch-side monitor and limiting the amount of time allowed in order to reach a decision.

As stated before, consideration should be given to a challenge system, as in tennis and cricket, with teams losing one of their appeals if they are shown to be wrong (and the officials are correct).

I’m much less keen on applying a principle of ‘referee’s/ assistant referee’s call’ to close decisions, as is done with ‘umpire’s call’ in cricket, because clearly incorrect decisions can be (and often are) upheld in such circumstances.

Perhaps as regards offside only the part of the body which scored the goal or provided the pass/ assist should be checked as that was what gained any advantage?

Yet the major problem is the time taken.

VAR has helped in some regards, but the checking of every goal, the lengthy looking at (for?) potential offsides or fouls or handballs from a variety of angles is incredibly irksome, especially for supporters in stadia.

There is hope on the horizon, though.

On Monday the general secretary of the law-making International Football Association Board said that VAR technology should only be used to reverse "clear and obvious" mistakes - including offside decisions.

Lukas Brud said: "‘Clear and obvious’ still remains - it's an important principle. There should not be a lot of time spent to find something marginal.

"If you spend multiple minutes trying to identify whether it is offside or not, then it's not ‘clear and obvious’ and the original decision should stand.

"What we really need to stress is that ‘clear and obvious’ applies to every single situation that is being reviewed by the VAR or the referee.

"In theory one millimetre offside is offside, but if a decision is taken that a player is not offside and the VAR is trying to identify through looking at five, six, seven, 10, 12 cameras whether or not it was offside, then the original decision should stand.

"This is the problem, people are trying to be too forensic…

"If video evidence shows that a player was in an offside position, he was offside full stop. If it's not obvious, then the decision cannot be changed, you stay with the original decision.”

Sure, the debate will then move on to what constitutes ‘clear and obvious’ – an inch? Five centimetres? Six inches? Metric or imperial measurements post-Brexit?

Joking aside, unless a first or second replay clearly shows an obvious offside then just allow the goal and get on with the game. There’s no need to bring in the mythical ‘clear daylight’ but the margin for offside must be more than mere millimetres.

The, ahem, ‘marginal gains’ of getting a few more extremely close offside decisions correct has to be counter-balanced against the loss of atmosphere and enjoyment, of faith in the game.

Unless IFAB gets the ‘clear and obvious’ message across soon then there’ll be as much damage done to VAR’s reputation as to the game itself – and there’ll be a new song to sing (with apologies also to Edwin Starr):

VAR, huh, yeah

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing

Say it again

VAR, huh, good God

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing

Listen to me

* Having forgotten to wish my reader(s) ‘Merry Christmas’ a fortnight ago, I’ll take this opportunity – now that it is actually 2020 – to bid you all a ‘Happy New Year’.