VAR has been at the centre of controversy ever since it has been introduced in the Premier League but if a report in The Telegraph is to be believed then the authorities are trying to solve one problem at a time.
One of the major issues with VAR has been their offside calls which with each passing day are being judged by finer margins. In the hopes of keeping the possibility of errors really low, the referees have been ruling players offside by millimetres.
Sometimes the shoulder, sometimes the knee and sometimes even the toe is an offside position, as per the referees and this has caused a lot of stir amongst all the players as well as the managers. But now as per the reports, the Premier League authorities are taking steps to rule out as much of the controversies as possible and avoid marginal decisions.
The Telegraph claims: “Var’s lines to be thickened in Premier League with hope of eliminating armpit offsides. Plus, Broadcasters and TV viewers will reportedly no longer see the process of drawing the offside line, just the final result.
“Thicker lines will be built into Premier League Var technology next season in a bid to calm fan and manager anger over fine-margin offside decisions.
“Referees bosses received the backing of clubs to widen the digital stripes which have notoriously led to goals being ruled out by an armpit.
“The technology tweak, which would effectively give more benefit of doubt back to the attacker, was given the approval of top-tier executives following a presentation at the league’s Annual General Meeting.”
Without a shadow of a doubt, VAR has made things slow and more critical in the Premier League and perhaps the biggest point of debate has been the offside calls.
The Premier League are set you use ‘thicker lines’ for marginal VAR offside calls. PGMOL hopes the change will give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ back to the attacking teams.
[via @SkySportsPL] pic.twitter.com/oJcvsrrSsq
— City Chief (@City_Chief) June 10, 2021
The report also claims that Timo Werner’s disallowed goal for Chelsea at Liverpool in March could have had a key influence to add the thicker offside lines in VAR.
UEFA and the Dutch League already use thicker lines for VAR so it will only be sensible if the Premier League followed suit as well.
