Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
The Premier League is ‘hopeful’ that the semi-automatic technology will still come in ‘this season’.
Sign up to our LondonWorld Today newsletter
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to LondonWorld, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Submitting...
Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Chelsea and Premier League rivals will soon play top flight fixtures with the use of semi-automated VAR offside technology after 'significant progress' towards the implementation of the system was confirmed this week.
It's been almost a year since the 20 Premier League clubs voted unanimously to introduce the technology, which could reduce the time taken for an offside check by 31 seconds on average. The news comes just days after the fixture between Chelsea and West Ham was decided by an offside decision.
Pedro Neto scored the Blues' equaliser in the 64th minute as Enzo Maresca's side came back from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1. After the goal was given, there was a lengthy check for offside by VAR with multiple angles and replays needed to decide that Marc Guiu had not nicked the ball on its way over to Marc Cucurella, which would have put the full-back in an offside position.
VAR used for offside call as Chelsea beat West Ham
Reacting to that decision after the game, Hammers boss Graham Potter said: "We felt unlucky with the first goal. We felt it was a foul on Jarrod [Bowen]. I haven’t seen it back [the Guiu offside call]. It took that long, it must have been tight."
Boos rang out around Stamford Bridge during that lengthy VAR check and the new system should help in that situation. The semi-automatic system was not ready at the start of the campaign but was due to be brought in after one of the Autumn international breaks.
That was not the case and, now in 2025, an update has come from the Premier League. Chief football officer Tony Scholes said: "We are still testing it, but we are making significant progress. We're in a different place to when I spoke to managers just over Christmas, we've made a lot of progress in this area.
"Now I'm hopeful that at some point this season we will be able to introduce semi-automated technology but I repeat the points I've made a number of times. We are not going to introduce it if we've got any doubts at all with regards to its operation."
Semi-automatic offside coming to the Premier League
The semi-automatic offside system will remove the manual process of placing lines onto players and the pitch, speeding up the decision making on offside calls. FIFA and UEFA used an enhanced system in the World Cup and Champions League, which saw a chip placed inside the ball for better detection of whether it had been touched. However, Adidas owns the patent for that system and does not provide the ball to major European leagues.
Scholes added: "The system that we've adopted, we believe it to be the best system. We believe it to be the most accurate and the most futureproof system as well and that's why we went with that.
"I have to confess, given the difficulties that we had over the first few months of the season, I had severe doubts about this, but the progress made over the last four to six weeks has been significant. We believe we're going to be adopting the best system and the most accurate system without the need for the chip in the ball."