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Making sense of the offside rule decision

Yesterday’s VAR decision over West Ham’s disallowed goal confused many supporters including the match officials it seems who first said they were checking for a possible foul then for a possible offside infringement.

The decision seemed to take forever indicating that even officials struggled . Maybe there should be a time limit on difficult decisions if the original decision should stand.

The first to take into account is the two player rule, where the keeper and an outfield player must be in front of an opposition player so Antonio was technically offside however as the ball was knocked onto Michail Antonio from a Brighton player it was thought that would make him onside.

VAR officials went back to when the ball was first touched by Craig Dawson so before the ball hits the Brighton player and at that particular point Antonio was judged to be offside using the two player rule.

There could be argument as to whether Antonio affected the movement of the ball when he brushed his shin, many supporters say no but match officials said yes hence the goal was ruled out.

Silly I know but the letter of the law.

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

One comment on “Making sense of the offside rule decision

  1. I was under the impression that the offside law stated that it should be 2 players between goal and attacker, not necessarily the goalkeeper, but I’m sure this would not affect the decision anyway.

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