“The straightforward solution to all of these issues appears quite simple: improve the quality of referees.
It would have resolved the problem witnessed on Saturday on multiple occasions. More competent referees would have had a better real-time awareness of spatial and temporal factors, enabling them to determine that Luis Díaz was clearly behind the Tottenham defensive line when Mohamed Salah struck the ball. The goal would have stood from the start, with replays confirming it, resulting in Liverpool taking a 1-0 lead, and everyone could have reclaimed the past week of their lives.
This would have also rectified the second error. Even vastly improved referees might have missed the call on the field, as it can be challenging for the human brain to precisely gauge the positions of multiple moving players and a ball in real-time. However, more capable referees would have eventually reached the correct decision after a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review.
The communication released between the on-field referee and all the VAR-related officials has been described as a modern Vaudeville skit, a digital era version of “Who’s on First.” The communication was so vague and stilted that misunderstandings were bound to occur. Competent communication would have swiftly clarified the situation, confirming that a goal had been scored.
Moreover, competence at various levels of decision-making within the officiating hierarchy would have established better communication protocols and a means to rectify errors during the game.
Paying referees and related personnel more, attracting individuals with fast-paced spatio-temporal assessment skills, and bringing in individuals who excel in high-pressure situations requiring clear communication could resolve this refereeing crisis.
However, this perspective, expressed by some in European soccer, still does not address the core issue: the offside rule and VAR may be incompatible.
A few years ago, after the Premier League introduced VAR technology for offside decisions, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola expressed a simple hope for VAR’s role. He stated, “Maybe the intensity and passion will leave. Hopefully, it doesn’t make mistakes. If it’s offside, it’s offside.”
In essence, Guardiola hoped that VAR lines would reveal the objective truth about whether a player was offside or not, eliminating arguments about the correctness of the call. It was all about the lines, simplifying the matter!
However, passion and intensity have not dissipated. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp called for a replay of the match against Tottenham. Just a few weeks ago, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag suggested that the VAR lines were incorrect when a goal by Alejandro Garnacho was ruled out against Arsenal. Fans regularly share screenshots of VAR decisions to demonstrate crooked lines and perceived injustices. Fandom is inherently tribal, and more technology will not resolve tribalism.
Nonetheless, this broader skepticism of VAR is rooted in rational concerns, according to sociologist Harry Collins at the University of Cardiff. Collins, previously focused on the sociology of gravitational waves, has more recently delved into the role of referees in sports and their interactions within the larger social framework.
In 2017, Collins co-authored a book titled “Bad Call: Technology’s Attack on Referees and Umpires and How to Fix It.” The book argued that referees needed technological assistance to address the disequilibrium created by fans and pundits scrutinizing every decision. With every match televised and instant replay technology advancements, fans and pundits had the luxury of reviewing incidents from multiple angles and at different speeds, while referees had to make real-time judgments.
This discrepancy was untenable. Sports fans watched for the excitement of competition, not to evaluate referees’ performance. There was growing evidence that refereeing decisions affected the outcomes of games, undermining the integrity of the sport. Consequently, Collins advocated for some form of technological aid to referees but preferred a simpler solution to the complex VAR system used today.
VAR technology has not resonated with everyone. Despite making the game fairer in theory, something about its application to offside decisions creates discomfort. Collins suggests that this discomfort may arise from the digitization of an inherently nuanced aspect of the game.
Digital technology converts events into binary outcomes (yes or no), whereas soccer’s offside rule operates on a gradient. VAR employs digital lines and freeze-frame images to determine offside positions, effectively reducing a complex decision to either offside or onside.
In soccer, scoring a goal is binary – the ball is either completely over the line or not. Offside, on the other hand, has degrees. A player’s position can provide a significant advantage if he’s six feet offside, while being six feet onside doesn’t provide any advantage. The competitive difference between being a fraction of an inch offside and a fraction of an inch onside is negligible.
The current VAR method offers an illusion of precision. The Premier League states that the lines used to establish offside positions are each one pixel thick, manually placed by VAR operators. However, professional soccer players can cover more than a foot in 1/50th of a second, potentially leading to images captured within the same 1/50th-of-a-second frame showing a player both onside and offside. This process doesn’t provide an objective truth about offside; it presents a random combination influenced by when the camera captured the image and where VAR operators positioned the lines. It’s a far cry from an accurate assessment.
Furthermore, the VAR technology used by the Premier League is managed by Hawk-Eye Innovations, a company owned by Sony, which keeps the technical details of its technology proprietary. Public understanding of the technology’s inner workings is limited to what the league discloses.
The same margin of error exists in goal-line technology, but it has been largely accepted by the public. If the Premier League were to adopt an automated offside system, similar issues would persist, with images accompanied by definitive offside or onside rulings, despite the inherent uncertainty of the technology.
“A player is not considered offside if they are even with the second-last opponent. The current implementation of the offside rule has evolved to include intricate details, largely due to constant scrutiny in each match, necessitating precise definitions for the one-pixel lines to align with. However, the original intent of the offside rule was to prevent players from lurking near the goal. Over time, governing bodies have settled on this specific interpretation as the definition of offside; it’s not an absolute truth about how soccer operates.
Any adjustments to the rule, such as relying solely on feet for positioning or requiring clear separation between attacker and defender, would merely relocate the zone of uncertainty. Instead, what if we redefined the rule and introduced a more subjective approach to its enforcement?
Many other rules in soccer already entrust referees with discretionary decisions. If a player gains an unfair advantage by positioning themselves behind the defense when the pass is made, it’s offside. If not, it’s onside. In cases of uncertainty, we could favor the attackers, akin to the concept of ‘tie goes to the runner’ in baseball.
There’s something intuitively unsatisfying about disallowing a goal because one armpit is marginally ahead of another. Scoring in soccer is challenging enough; why complicate it further?
The simplest solution would involve the referee reviewing various angles from the television broadcast on a monitor before deciding whether the player gained an unfair advantage with their positioning. These images could then be shown live in the stadium and on TV, providing the same perspective to the referees as to the spectators. This approach would enhance transparency compared to the current system and align the implementation of the offside rule with its underlying purpose as commonly understood. It would also reveal what VAR seeks to conceal: the subjective nature of offside, rather than a clear-cut judgment.
As Collins suggested, both the crowd and the referee should have access to all relevant information. There’s no need for remote offices; the referee could remain on the field, examining the screen and making decisions, allowing the crowd to witness the process and see that the referee is making informed judgments. While not everyone may always agree with every decision due to the inherent ambiguity, that’s an enduring aspect of the referee’s role.”
Nonetheless, this broader skepticism of VAR is rooted in rational concerns, according to sociologist Harry Collins at the University of Cardiff. Collins, previously focused on the sociology of gravitational waves, has more recently delved into the role of referees in sports and their interactions within the larger social framework.
In 2017, Collins co-authored a book titled “Bad Call: Technology’s Attack on Referees and Umpires and How to Fix It.” The book argued that referees needed technological assistance to address the disequilibrium created by fans and pundits scrutinizing every decision. With every match televised and instant replay technology advancements, fans and pundits had the luxury of reviewing incidents from multiple angles and at different speeds, while referees had to make real-time judgments.