Mike Riley has claimed that the new VAR rules would have allowed roughly 20 goals last term that had been then classed as offside prior to the new tweaks.
It’s an update that will be music to Jurgen Klopp’s ears, with his side having suffered from numerous tight offside calls from the last term alone.
“One of the benefits we have next season is reintroducing the benefit of the doubt to the attacking player,” the referee chief told Sky Sports.
“So where you have those really close offside situations, we’ll carry on with the same process – we’ll draw a one pixel line of the defending player and one on the attacking player.
“We then overlay the slightly broader lines we use for broadcast and where they cross, then that will now be deemed onside.
“If you look at it, we’ll probably get 20 goals back that were disallowed last season and I think that’s a really good thing for football.”
Handing the advantage to the attacking player arguably will improve the excitement levels around the sport, with fan celebrations having dialed down in favour of a more cautious approach to potential goals in light of strict VAR rulings.
VAR arrived in football with much fanfare, with it being claimed that the technology would make things fairer.
Instead, fans were introduced to a near endless stream of bizarre and frustrating decisions that penalised players for having an armpit or heel slightly beyond the thin offending line.
We at the EOTK will certainly be very curious as to whether the changes introduced will make a genuine difference across an entire campaign.
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