It was supposed to be the innovation that made offside decisions almost instantaneous.
But the first weekend of semi-automated offside technology in football brought an epic eight-minute VAR check that ended with a goal ruled out for… offside.
In the first half of their FA Cup fifth-round game at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bournemouth thought they had added to Evanilson’s opening goal when they bundled home a corner at the far post.
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But after an interminable delay and three different checks by video assistant referee Timothy Wood, the goal was disallowed by what is believed to be the longest VAR check ever in English football.
The goal was initially awarded by referee Sam Barrott after David Brooks’ corner crossed the line by touches off Milos Kerkez and Dean Huijsen.
That is when the epic check began.
Bournemouth were ruled not to have handled the ball, but they were offside (Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)
First, Wood and assistant VAR Darren England, in the video room at Stockley Park, checked for handball by Kerkez.
Despite the ball striking his arm, they decided he had not handled the ball deliberately. Then they checked for handball by Huijsen and again, they decided he was in the clear.
But then came the matter of whether Huijsen was offside when the ball broke to him off Kerkez.
Semi-automated offside technology, which is being trialed for the first time in England in this weekend’s FA Cup matches, was supposed to make offside decisions in a few seconds.
But the Football Association (FA) warned in advance that marginal offside decisions in crowded goalmouths might prove too tight for the new technology to detect, meaning VAR would need to resort to the previous method of drawing lines on the images manually.
That was the case at Bournemouth. Eventually, with supporters in the stadium ridiculing the length of the delay, the goal was disallowed for offside against Huijsen.
Midway through the process, the on-field officials even called together players and coaches from both clubs to explain the delay.
It took the VAR eight minutes to come to the final decision. (Jack Thomas – WWFC/Wolves via Getty Images)
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.”
(Top photo: BBC)
