Premier League suspends ‘revolution’ after Cup failure
An incident at Bournemouth’s FA Cup fifth round tie against Wolves has prompted the Premier League to delay the introduction of semi-automated offside.
The Premier League has postponed the introduction of semi-automated offside technology following the incident in the FA Cup fifth round tie between Bournemouth and Wolves.
The technology, which was trialled for the first time in English football in seven of the eight games in the fifth round, failed at the Vitality Stadium due to what FA sources described as a ‘congested penalty area’. That led to an unprecedented wait (eight minutes) as Video Assistant Referee Timothy Wood made three checks before ruling out Bournemouth’s Milos Kerkez’s offside goal.
The plan to introduce the technology into the Premier League after this month’s international break has therefore been delayed. Despite this decision, the English Football Association has confirmed that it will retest three FA Cup quarter-final matches , and will continue to use it in the semi-finals and final.
According to The Guardian , Premier League sources have indicated that they would like to implement semi-automatic offside this season, but that it would require support from clubs. The earliest it could be introduced would be the weekend of April 5 and 6, although some clubs are questioning whether a significant change should be introduced with eight games remaining.
Clubs voted unanimously in favour of introducing SAOT last April and it was due to be introduced in October, but tests at the stadium revealed accuracy issues which were only resolved last month.
Premier League director of football Tony Scholes admitted he had “serious doubts” about the viability of the technology last February and a number of concerns remain.
