Football lawmakers: VAR confusion is league problem, offsides won't change

Football's lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), states its focus is not on individual leagues' usage of VAR while it issues guidelines on the technology to "over 100 competitions around the globe," according to Reuters' Simon Evans.

IFAB general secretary Lukas Brud also announced there are no plans to revise the offside law despite recent controversial VAR decisions in the Premier League.

"We don't think it is time (to change the law)," Brud said. "What we need to do is focus on the training and education and ensure that the consistency and application of the VAR/offside law is being done properly."

Brud is becoming a regular spokesperson on VAR following a series of tight offside decisions in England's top flight. Last week, the secretary first appeared to say the Premier League is ignoring the "clear and obvious" principle but tried to clarify his comments days later when he said offside should be a quick and objective call in any league.

"Of course, it is a requirement to follow the laws of the game and the VAR protocol," Brud explained in his latest interaction with the media. "Competitions may apply some elements of it in a slightly different way but still within the laws and protocol framework. We work together to try to make it work better.

"We are not the police, we cannot be the police. We will be issuing guidelines on the use of VAR as we do on a regular basis.

"That has nothing to do with the Premier League. In cooperation with FIFA, we are currently working with around 90 countries, over 100 competitions around the globe. Our focus is certainly not on the Premier League, just because there are some media debates about VAR in the Premier League."

The stream of narrow offside calls in the Premier League - ESPN's Dale Johnson counted eight instances of VAR ruling out goals on marginal offsides between Christmas Day and Jan. 3 - has led some pundits to propose amendments to the law. One suggested change is for there to be daylight between the attacker and second-last opponent for there to be an offside.

Brud rejected such tweaks and, despite the current frame rate of a standard HD camera not being satisfactory to identify offsides by very tight margins - Brud mentioned a centimeter last week - doesn't believe the law or technology need to be reconsidered. Instead, to be quicker and court less controversy, officials just need to get more familiar with the technology through experience and greater understanding.

"VARs should not be spending a lot of time looking at an incident that on the first or second sight doesn't show clear and obvious evidence that the original decision was wrong," he said.