Why first weekend of semi-automated offsides saw the longest VAR check in English football history…
The semi-automated technology was supposed to make offside decisions in a few seconds, but in its very first weekend we instead saw the longest VAR check ever in English football…
Bournemouth thought they had doubled their lead in the first half against Wolves as they bundled the ball in at the far post from a corner, but after an extraordinary eight-minute delay the goal was ruled out.
The goal was initially awarded by referee Sam Barrott after David Brooks’ corner crossed the line after touches from Milos Kerkez and Dean Huijsen, before VAR Timothy Wood got involved.
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With the aid of assistant VAR Darren England he first confirmed that while the ball did strike Kerkez’s arm it wasn’t a deliberate act, before then also clearing Huijsen of handball.
But then came the matter of whether Huijsen was offside when the ball broke to him off Kerkez.
Trialed for the first time in England in this weekend’s FA Cup games, semi-automated offside technology was supposed to make decisions almost instantaneously, but in this case took eight minutes, which is thought to be the longest VAR check ever in English football.
But the FA did warn in advance that crowded goalmouths could make marginal offside calls difficult for the new technology to detect, meaning VAR would have to resort to drawing the lines.
After the game, Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola said: “They told us they were going to implement it in the first or the second international breaks this season. Definitely something has not been working well because they’ve decided to put it almost at the end of the season.
“And today, they checked the handball first and they said quickly that it was not a handball, so they were checking the offside. He told us the semi-automatic offside was not working so they have to do the process manually. It has taken a lengthy, lengthy, lengthy drawing.”
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An article published on the FA website before the trial asked: “Will SAOT remove long delays for close offside calls?”
The article reads: “In most cases, yes. The SAOT system is designed to significantly decrease delays caused by the manual process currently used by VAR to determine offsides by ‘drawing lines’ with crosshairs.
“Most offside decisions will be quicker, but VAR will still have the option to draw crosshairs as a backup to the SAOT system if required.
“This process may be necessary in ‘edge cases’ where several players block the view of the ball or other players for the system’s cameras. This may occasionally result in the length of check we have seen previously in specific scenarios with VAR checking close offsides.
“The length of certain VAR checks may also remain where decisions need to consider multiple offside checks or other offenses such as fouls or handballs in the attacking possession phase.”