Premier League shares update on semi-automated VAR offside technology

The Premier League has said “significant progress” has been made with testing of semi-automated VAR offside technology (SAOT) in recent weeks, adding that it still plans to introduce the new system this season.

It’s almost a year since clubs unanimously voted to bring in the technology, which is intended to reduce the time taken for an offside check by an average of 31 seconds.

The system was not ready at the start of the season, but it was supposed to be brought in “after one of the Autumn international breaks.”

However, no information was forthcoming on the progress of testing, and as the calendar crossed into 2025 it seemed as though SAOT would not arrive in the 2024-25 campaign.

Extensive testing and analysis was conducted throughout last season but the Premier League is not yet confident the technology is fully reliable and won’t use it live until it is.

“We are still testing it, but we are making significant progress,” Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, revealed on Tuesday. “We’re in a different place to when I spoke to managers just over Christmas, we’ve made a lot of progress in this area.

“Now I’m hopeful that at some point this season we will be able to introduce semi-automated technology but I repeat the points I’ve made a number of times. We are not going to introduce it if we’ve got any doubts at all with regards to its operation.”

SAOT removes the manual element of placing the lines onto players and to pitch level, making it quicker and more accurate. The technology also provides a much-improved graphical visualisation of an offside decision, rather than the existing method of displaying lines on the broadcast camera.

FIFA and UEFA have used an enhanced system in the World Cup and the UEFA Champions League, which sees a chip inside the ball for better detection of when the ball has been touched.

Serie A was the first European domestic league to switch to SAOT, introducing it in January 2023 after a high-profile VAR error early in that campaign.

LaLiga became the second top European league to move over to SAOT at the start of this season, though its accuracy has been called into doubt.

Questions have been raised about the Premier League developing its own SAOT, when other leagues have already introduced it.