Published 21:32 IST, February 19th 2020
Arsene Wenger shares plan to clear confusion around the Offside rule and VAR
The offside rule has caused a lot of confusion and frustration amongst players, coaching staff and the fans after the introduction of VAR
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Arsene Wenger has stated that he is looking for a change in the offside rules so as to clear any confusion. FIFA's Head of Global Football Development is looking to introduce the rules before this summer's EURO 2020 tournament.
Arsene Knows
"[I'm speaking about] the offside by a margin of a fraction of centimeters. There is room to change the rule and not say that a part of a player’s nose is offside, so you are offside because you can score with that. Instead, you will be not be offside if any part of the body that can score a goal is in line with the last defender, even if other parts of the attacker’s body are in front. That will sort it out and you will no longer have decisions about millimeters and a fraction of the attacker being in front of the defensive line.”
The offside rule has caused a lot of confusion and frustration amongst players, coaching staff and the fans after the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR). The judgment has narrowed down to millimeters, with certain decisions being awarded because a certain body part of the opposition player was ahead or behind the defender.
At the Laureus Sports Awards in Berlin, he said, "The most difficult [issue] that people have [with VAR] is the offside rule. You have had offsides by a fraction of a centimeter, literally by a nose. It is time to do this quickly."
VAR has created controversies every weekend this season, with the latest victim of confusion being Wolverhampton Wanderers, after a goal was disallowed against Leicester City. Nuno Espirito Santo said that something "needed to be done" about VAR. "It’s upsetting and it’s an issue that it becomes harder to regain the concentration of the players because everything changes from that moment. It upsets you because when you see the images, there’s no clear advantages. The law is the law, of course, and I don’t want to say it’s a bad decision, but there’s no clear advantage in that situation. The body is in line, the foot stays behind."
"What I’m positive about is that full reaction of us professionally, the full reaction of the fans, but something has to be done – let the people that understand make changes to go back to the joy of celebrating goals like we used to do, because we are in danger of becoming robots and football is not about that. When the fans sing they are not happy, we are not happy.”
21:32 IST, February 19th 2020