Arsene Wenger has said that offsides could become automated in 2022, in what would be another advancement in football technology.
Currently, contentious offside decisions are finalised by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system.
The Premier League made several changes to the technology prior to this season. Referees’ chief Mike Riley stated that the threshold for VAR intervention would be slightly higher than last season.
Thicker lines are now used to determine whether or not a player is offside. That essentially gives attackers more of the benefit of the doubt in tight situations.
Wenger on automated offsides
Wenger, who is currently FIFA‘s Chief of Global Football Development, spoke at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday. He explained how offside technology could be improved.
He said (quotes via Le Soir): “There is a good chance that offside will be automated in 2022. I am bound to secrecy, but this will be the next of the major developments in arbitration.”
It is not the first time the Frenchman has spoken about the topic.
Back in April, he said he hoped that automatic offsides would be in place in time for the World Cup in Qatar next winter. Wenger also detailed what the process could entail.
“Automated means it goes directly from the signal to the linesman and the linesman has on his watch a red light that tells him offside or not offside,” he told FIFA’s Living Football show.
“At the moment, we have situations where the players are on lines to see if they are offside or not. On average, the time we have to wait is around 70 seconds, sometimes one minute 20 seconds, sometimes a little bit longer when the situation is very difficult to appreciate.”
“The semi-automated goes first to the VAR, who signals it to the linesman. I’m pushing very hard to have the automated offsides, which means straight away the signal goes to the linesman.”
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