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General News of Wednesday, 19 February 2020

Source: BBC

VAR: Arsene Wenger suggests offside law could 'change a little bit'

Wenger Wenger

Fifa's chief of global football development Arsene Wenger says there might be room to the change the offside law "a little bit" in response to video assistant referee controversy.

VAR has contentiously ruled out a number of goals for marginal offences.

"[I'm speaking about] the offside by a margin of a fraction of a centimetres," said the former Arsenal manager.

"Maybe there is room to change the offside rule a little bit so we don't say a part of his nose was offside."

Wenger's role at the world governing body includes sitting on the technical panel of the International Football Association Board (Ifab), which sets football's laws and will hold its annual general meeting in Belfast on 29 February.

At present, a player is offside if any part of their body with which they can score is ahead of the second-last opponent - typically, this is the last opposing outfield player, because of the goalkeeper's positioning.

Wenger suggested amending the law so that "you will not be offside if any part of the body that can score a goal is in line with the last defender, even if other parts of the attacker's body are in front".

Wenger also said there were "not enough VAR specialists and that will improve very quickly".

He added "former referees have to be involved" and "experienced players" could also be used.