If they introduced an "off-side can", what the hell would I talk to the wife about on a Saturday evening, while she sleeps on the sofa? Goal cam is already going to stop half the conversation.
Some of us remember this contender for goal of the season by Danny Wallace (starts at 2.04) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCHOBa2MlU Did you notice who the centre back No. 6 for Liverpool was?
We always scored good goals against Liverpool back then ... remember Micky Channon's "greatest goal ever?" [video=youtube;TxyYSoblpcI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxyYSoblpcI[/video]
Did you notice a player wearing number three put a cross in from the byline? ... are you watching Luke Shaw?
Ok, a computerised system could never be reliable, but requiring a human 'television official' is something that FIFA have always said they would never consider. The referee is the sole arbiter of the game in their view. Plus, any human judgement is subjective, as the DRS controversy in cricket demonstrates.
I think for close calls the attacking team should be given benefit of the doubt. Isn't that supposed to happen anyway?
I would submit that an elevated view replay of an offside decision is far easier to determine than any DRS system has to consider. Plus, I would never ever write off [not right, my own error there] a computerised system. Computerised systems are still in their infancy and the leaps and bounds that these systems are making would make the average person's head spin. Goal line technology has pushed the non-human intervention objection aside. The flood gates to electronic aided refereeing will open, sooner or later.
Offside should be automatically cancelled out whenever a goal of stunning brilliance like Osvaldo's (or Keegan's) is scored. In fact goals like that should count double, to encourage more players to try stuff like that. It would make football more entertaining in the long run.
I don't think that is the case, the referee still signals the goal, it's just that the technology informs his decision. I think that's how FIFA allowed it to get though it's cognitive dissonance about the referee having the last word. I don't see how it can work with offside. It's undeniably true that a television official would get more decisions right than on-field officials, but it still wouldn't be perfect, as demonstrated by lots of people on here somehow deciding that Rodriguez's goal against Sunderland should have stood (when it was correctly ruled out), despite having seen it played back. Plus, it would require a delay before the decision is reached, which is something the powers that be won't seem to allow. Goal-line technology was a difficult challenge to overcome, offside decisions are many, many times more complex and as a computer science graduate, I'm afraid I really can't see it ever happening. Augmented reality glasses showing the linesmen where the current line of the last defender is, maybe, but nothing more than that (and that would still be extremely difficult). Nothing in the rules about that, seems to have been invented by pundits.
The experience with cricket shows that even with tv replays it can take minutes to get an answer and that may be subsequently shown to be wrong. If you want a quick answer on offsides, the rules would have to be simplified so that the player is onside if his feet are behind that line. This rule about the head (since you can play with your head) is just nitpicking....especially as a running player's chest, head and arms may be ahead of his feet. Of course, this only applies if you are considering video replays....the human eye can only make snap judgement. On a side note, I have always wondered if the colour of the kit in relation to the opposition has any affect on what the eye sees.
