Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has been sharing his thoughts on VAR’s decision to disallow a goal for Southampton during their recent 3-0 win over Championship side AFC Bournemouth in the FA Cup.
Southampton thought they had opened the scoring on the day after Bournemouth defender Cameron Carter-Vickers put the ball in his own net, only for the goal to be disallowed after VAR judged Walker-Peters to be marginally offside in the build-up to the goal.
Speaking exclusively to This Is Futbol, Halsey was asked what his thoughts on the situation were.
In response, Halsey had this to say on the matter.
He said: “They can put the lines anywhere you want. You can move those lines and it’s got to be absolutely parallel with it. It needs changing, this nonsense with the T-shirt line and the armpit that you can score with is nonsense.
“It’s absolute nonsense. We’re ruling out goals because if you can score with any part your body, what part of the body you can score with, then you can be offside. So now because you can score with that part of the arm, you’re offside, and it’s ludicrous, it really is, and it does need looking at it and they do need to change it.”
“I think to nullify that situation, I think we’ve got to go back to using the naked eye and if you can’t tell in a first or second replay that’s offside, then it’s not, give the goal, it seems to take forever to justify ruling out a goal for offside.”
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Goals from Moussa Djenepo and Nathan Redmond secured the win for the Saints against their south-coast neighbours to book their place in the semi-final of the FA Cup, where they will face fellow Premier League side Leicester City at Wembley Stadium next month to try and make it to the final.
In regards to Halsey’s comments about VAR’s decision to rule out the own goal for Walker-Peters being offside, Southampton can take heart from the fact that it didn’t ultimately have any say in regards to the overall result on the day.
However, with Halsey claiming the rule needs to be changed, it seems that this should now be something IFAB should be thinking about moving forward.