One thing that is frowned upon in refereeing circles, is for one referee to criticise the decisions of other referees, but there were one or two VAR prompted decisions during the FIFA World Cup that I might describe as thought provoking.
One of these, which happened in an early Argentina match, is quite interesting, as it covers an area of offside that is perhaps sometimes overlooked. The ball was played from the left into the penalty area.
An Argentine player was standing in an offside position in the right hand side of the penalty area. The ball, however, did not reach him immediately, being headed away by a defender, but only as far as the offside Argentinian who promptly put it in the back of the opponents goal.
The referee at first allowed the goal but after being prompted by the VAR, he went to the monitor. When he returned he over-ruled the goal and awarded a free kick to the defending side for offside. I think most football fans are aware of the offside law, which says that to be in an offside position, a player must be nearer to the opponents goal line than both the ball and the second last defending player.
For this to be an offence, there are two points. Firstly, he must be in that position when the ball is last played by a team mate and then only if he plays the ball or interferes with play in some way.
Wait, you may say, the ball wasn’t last played by a team mate, instead it was headed to him inadvertently by the defender. Now here comes the face safer for the referee.
The law also says that the player is still given offside if the ball has been deliberately ‘saved’ by an opponent. We usually think of a ‘save’ being committed by the goalkeeper stopping the ball going into the gaol, but it can be made by any player.
The law’s description is ‘a save is when a player stops or attempts to stop a ball, which is going into or close to the goal’ But how far out can this be judged? The player heading the ball was probably six yards or more off the goal line.
At the beginning of this season there was discussion about what constituted a rebound or deflection off a defender, which still left any offside opponent offside, as opposed to an offside player receiving the ball after an attempt to play the ball by a defender, which put him on side. Looks as if we will have to look a little deeper in future.
By Dick Sawdon Smith
