Anyone who is not a fan of VAR might be dismayed to learn that another piece of football technology is on its way.
It was recently confirmed at the IFAB business meeting, that the experiment with the Automatic Offside Alert is being trialled.
This is something that has been on the boil for a few years. Basically. it is more technology to assist the correctness of offside decisions.
Offside, as I have often said, is a complicated decision mainly because there are three separate sections to it. The player has to be in an offside position at the moment the ball is played by a team mate, who could of course be a considerable distance away.
This is where they are going to use this technology. The original concept was for this information to be relayed to the VAR who would pass it on the assistant referee but it was decided that would take too long.
The updated version is that the assistant referee involved will be alerted directly that a player is offside.
But of course, the third part of the offside law is that the player in an offside position is not committing an offence unless he/she plays the ball or interferes with play or an opponent. The technology can’t cope with this, so this has to be left to the assistant referee.
One of the things that I have been critical about with VAR is that the cameras are static, they don’t go up and down like an assistant referee, keeping in line with the last but one defender. So when you see a photo from the VAR, the camera is seldom in line with the player.
I have probably run over 1000 lines in my refereeing career and it is quite obvious that to get the decision correct you have to be in line with the last but one defender.
When illustrating this to trainee referees, I have used a magnetic or felt board marked out as a pitch and put three ‘players’ in a straight line across the pitch.
Then placing a set square just in front or behind the first two players, it shows how just a small difference gives you an entirely different decision.
However, we are told that there will be 10-12 cameras, checking 29 points on the body of a player 50 times a second, and software will be analysing the data in real time, to calculate the exact moment the ball is played and the position of every player.
It will also include grids to make offside clear, presumably for the VAR to peruse.
By Dick Sawdon Smith
