SHA Small Heath Alliance

You’re missing the point that is however wide the line you’d still get decisions decided by a few cm or smaller

You’re missing the point that is however wide the line you’d still get decisions decided by a few cm or smaller

No I do understand that.

But I'd rather be told 'look you agreed to a 5% thickness line between 2 players - and they can't be joined so he's offside'.

Rather than "well, if you look closely his big toe was in front of him by 1cm so no goal".

I mean - at the minute - the wind on someone's shirt could be a factor.

There will always be debate BUT it also gives the game itself some feckin common sense back.

I mean - at the minute - the wind on someone's shirt could be a factor.

It still will be

StechyBlue

You’re missing the point that is however wide the line you’d still get decisions decided by a few cm or smaller

No I do understand that.

But I'd rather be told 'look you agreed to a 5% thickness line between 2 players - and they can't be joined so he's offside'.

Rather than "well, if you look closely his big toe was in front of him by 1cm so no goal".

I mean - at the minute - the wind on someone's shirt could be a factor.

There will always be debate BUT it also gives the game itself some feckin common sense back.

Yeah, I think you are right - it should be easier to see. VAR is here to stay, anything that helps speed up the process is good in my eyes and I believe that this will, plus as said before - more advantage to the attacker can only be good.

It won’t speed the game up because however thick the lines are there’ll still be debate over minuscule margins.
I really don’t understand how this isn’t obvious to all (Le Mod apart as he gets it)

5% of what?

Right....AI can extrapolate what im saying actually quite well! And I still like the idea.


You’re basically arguing for a philosophical and technical reset of how offside is judged — moving away from the current binary geometry (“is any part of the attacker in front?”) toward a material‑advantage model (“is the attacker meaningfully ahead in a way that actually matters?”).

Let me build out what you’re saying in a clean, structured way so the idea becomes fully formed.

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⚽ The core of your argument
The current VAR offside system treats offside as absolute:
- If any playable body part is ahead of the last defender — even a toe, a stud, a nipple — the goal is disallowed.
- This creates decisions that are technically correct but football‑stupid.

You’re proposing a shift to a tolerance-based, torso‑to‑torso measurement with a leeway zone that reflects actual advantage, not microscopic geometry.

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🧠 What your idea actually means (extrapolated)

1. Offside should measure advantage, not anatomy
Instead of:
- “Is he in front?”

You want:
- “Is he meaningfully in front?”

That means:
- No more toe‑offsides.
- No more armpit‑offsides.
- No more pixel‑offsides.

2. Use torso-to-torso as the reference
This is the part of the body that:
- Controls direction
- Determines sprinting advantage
- Reflects real momentum

Feet and hands don’t meaningfully change the outcome of a run.

3. Introduce a leeway percentage
This is the clever bit.

You’re saying:
- The VAR line thickness = a percentage of allowable advancement.
- If the attacker is within that tolerance, the goal stands.
- Only when there is clear daylight between attacker torso and defender torso beyond the leeway zone does offside apply.

In other words:
> Offside only when the attacker is ahead by a margin that actually creates a footballing advantage.

4. The “cannot join the lines” test
You described a simple visual rule:

- Draw a line on the attacker’s torso.
- Draw a line on the defender’s torso.
- Add the leeway zone between them.
- If the leeway zone cannot bridge the gap, the attacker is clearly ahead → offside.
- If the leeway zone can bridge the gap, the advantage is negligible → goal stands.

This is intuitive, consistent, and removes the absurdity of goals being chalked off for millimetres.

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🔍 Why this matters
Right now, VAR offside decisions fail three tests:

- Football logic — nobody thinks a toe gives advantage.
- Fan experience — goals are being denied for trivialities.
- Flow of the game — celebrations feel pointless.

Your model restores:
- Common sense
- Advantage-based judgement
- A margin of error that reflects real football movement

It’s basically the same principle as “umpire’s call” in cricket — technology helps, but doesn’t override the spirit of the game.

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🧩 How this could be implemented
A workable system would include:

- Torso-only tracking (already possible with limb-tracking tech).
- A fixed tolerance band (e.g., 10–15 cm, or a percentage of average sprint stride).
- Automatic decision:
- If attacker’s torso is beyond the defender’s torso plus the tolerance → offside.
- If not → onside.

This keeps the decision objective but removes the absurd precision.

They’d still spend ages drawing lines to decide where a players torso ends and the arms begin, pixel decisions will remain. Players lean, bend and stand at different angles.

The onside/offside margin remains the same surely? You can move the lines around, make them thicker or thinner, draw them in different places, but the distances between the lines doesn’t change, so the margins remain the same.

You’re right that when someone is offside they would be ‘properly’ offside from a football sense but the margin between offside and onside remains unchanged.

This is a bit like when I ask the kids to tidy their rooms and they move the crap from part of the floor to another, the thing that annoyed me is still there but in a different area to where it was before.

I am not sure it's that complex.

This - for example


Is onside - end of - we eliminate silliness straight off the bat.


Then I have done a quick mock up.

You could either draw the line at torso angle, or mid point straight.
Then the ' box we all agree on ' is the decider. If the lines dont meet in the box they're off. If they do, they're on.

Or if the players lines cannot be bridged by the agreed upon 'leway box' they're off.

Therefor we're not all arguing if his tit is off, we're all staring at the same metric.




I think this would bring an element of common sense back in. You could even use both systenm in case players are more upright.
Anyway I'm pitching this to Deborah Meaden later so wish me luck.

Therefor we're not all arguing if his tit is off, we're all staring at the same metric.

I think we'd just be arguing if the middle line of his body is off, and them deciding where the middle line of someone's body is with players facing in all sorts of different directions would be interesting, players don't all stand perfectly facing the goal

Yeah absolutely none of this stops there being a hard line somewhere.

Keep the law as it is, let the linos flag what they think, let managers/captains challenge if they think the decision is wrong, and have a 3 inch 'referee's call' zone either side of the line (so a 6 inch margin of human error) where the on field decision stands if it's too close to call.

Possibly, but then we'd be splitting hairs because we've agreed upon a box which allows for an amount of discrepancy.

I don't disagree though, there's always going to be some form of debate, controversy BUT at least we're using unchangeable metrics. Do the lines meet in the box - yes or no.

Rather than - why the feck are we disallowing goals for such small silly margins. Yes we are technically moving the margins, but if we all agree to move them to something more sensible, i don't think there will be as much controversy when its tight.

A team being denied prem football for a toe is like liquidating Tesco coz someone got a dodgy lettuce.

Sorry but I still don't see how it changes anything, maybe I'm being dim

Do the lines meet in the box
vs
Is one line ahead of the other

It's the same lines, being drawn by the same people, just in different places, goals would still be ruled in and out over the finest of millimetre margins, teams denied prem football by the same margins as they are now, just in a different way.

Adding discretion is merely adding a discretion line, so it's not really adding discretion at all, because it's still a line!

Sorry but I still don't see how it changes anything, maybe I'm being dim

Do the lines meet in the box
vs
Is one line ahead of the other

It's the same lines, being drawn by the same people, just in different places, goals would still be ruled in and out over the finest of millimetre margins, teams denied prem football by the same margins as they are now, just in a different way.

No you're not being dim - and I'm not trying to be difficult either.
I feel that the whole point of offside is to create a sense of competitive fairness.
The line will always have to be drawn somewhere - you're 100% correct.

I do however think most people would be open to adding (as my AI description said it better than i could)
..... a shift to a tolerance-based, torso‑to‑torso measurement with a leeway zone that reflects actual advantage, not microscopic geometry.

it is to some degree - about perception.
If this was the law- and the lines are out 'fair enough he's off'.

But watching Jay go through one on one in the playoff final's 90th minute, and calling it offside because his toe was 2cm in front of the defenders line would leave me spitting flames.

For me, that's were it's stupid. OK they can show the me line and his toe - fine...... but is this what we all want ?