Chris Dunlavy

UNLUCKY: Dejan Lovren

Automated offsides are a sensible idea but the offside law itself needs a complete overhaul before the system is adopted on a wider scale.
At present, VAR is spotting offsides that the naked eye can’t and - more to the point - make no difference to the actual outcome.

The overturned penalty in Croatia’s 0-0 draw with Belgium illustrates the problem. Croatia were correctly awarded a spot-kick when Andrej Kramaric was fouled in the box, only for the VAR to flag that Dejan Lovren was offside when the initial free-kick was swung into the box.

Computer...