VAR puts offside back under scrutiny as Wenger proposal returns

January 15, 2026 Oliver Obel

Football’s lawmakers are preparing to revisit a question that has lingered for years: does offside need fixing, or has video technology simply exposed the limits of how the rule can be enforced?

When the International Football Association Board (Ifab) gathers this week to discuss possible changes for future seasons, Arsene Wenger’s proposal to redefine offside will once again be part of the agenda. First introduced more than half a decade ago, the idea has never moved beyond limited testing largely because the pressure to act comes not from how the game is played, but from how it is reviewed.

A proposal born in the VAR era

Wenger became Fifa’s chief of global football development in November 2019 with a mandate to encourage attacking football. Almost immediately, he turned his attention to offside.

His suggestion is straightforward. An attacker should be considered onside if any part of their body is level with the defender. An offence would only be given if there is clear daylight between attacker and the second-to-last opponent.

The concept has returned to prominence as VAR decisions have become increasingly granular. According to BBC Sport, offside calls decided by millimetres often after long delays have fuelled frustration among players, coaches and supporters, even in matches where the original decision might once have stood without controversy.

That has shifted the debate away from whether offside is effective, and toward whether technology has forced the game into rewriting its own laws.

A law that has rarely been touched

Offside has been amended only twice since football’s laws were formalised in 1863, most recently in 1990. That change followed a defensively dominated World Cup in Italy and was intended to give attackers more freedom by allowing them to be level with the second-to-last defender.

The impact was clear. Goals increased, attacking movement improved, and the basic balance of the game remained intact.

Today, there is little suggestion that football lacks goals. Instead, as BBC Sport has reported, the momentum for change has been driven almost entirely by VAR’s ability to judge positions with a precision the law was never designed to accommodate.

In October, Ifab’s advisory panels warned against rewriting offside purely in response to close VAR calls, noting that video review affects only a small percentage of matches across the global game.

Technology adds pressure, not clarity

Semi-automated offside technology was expected to reduce controversy. In practice, it has added new complications.

BBC Sport has documented multiple issues in top European leagues, including long stoppages, system failures and cases where officials were forced to abandon automation and revert to manual line drawing. In one recent domestic cup match, a decision took more than five minutes because players were positioned too closely for the system to function properly.

The core criticism remains unchanged. No matter how offside is defined, there will always be a moment when a player crosses from legal to illegal positioning and VAR will still be required to judge it.

For many within the game, that suggests the problem lies with enforcement, not with the law itself.

Trials bring mixed signals

Wenger’s proposal has been tested in youth competitions in Italy and the Netherlands. BBC Sport has been told the response was generally positive, although some coaches and officials felt the balance shifted too far in favour of attackers.

Football’s history offers reasons to be cautious. Past law experiments designed to encourage attacking play have often produced unintended results, from tactical confusion to defensive adjustments that cancelled out the intended benefit.

Under Wenger’s offside model, defenders could be forced to drop deeper, particularly at set-pieces, increasing congestion in penalty areas rather than creating space.

No imminent decision

Ifab has yet to approve trials in senior professional competitions a necessary step before any wider adoption. Even if that hurdle were cleared, officials privately acknowledge that assessing the tactical impact, especially in matches using VAR, would take several seasons.

For now, Wenger’s offside law remains an idea shaped less by football’s need for change than by technology’s growing influence over how the game is judged. Whether lawmakers choose to rewrite one of football’s foundational rules, or instead reconsider how VAR is applied, is still unresolved.

Sources: BBC Sport