New offside technology put on hold as Premier League opts for further trials | Premier League
The introduction of semi-automatic offside technology (SAOT) will be delayed as a system that referees consider crucial to improving the performance of the video assistant referee system is not planned for use in Premier League matches before the new year.
Professional Game Match Officials Ltd's director of refereeing, Howard Webb, wanted the technology to be introduced this autumn and hoped it would be implemented after the October international break. The Premier League informed club officials at a shareholder meeting on Thursday that this would no longer be the case.
PGMOL is expected to carry out further trials of the technology during the autumn, although it is reluctant to start using it in the high-pressure environment of the Premier League until there is absolute confidence it will deliver the promised improvements. This summer, the Guardian revealed that PGMOL had opted to trial a system developed by the company Genius Sports rather than products provided by Hawk-Eye, which provides goal-line technology to the top flight. Officials hope the SAOT technology could reduce the time to confirm offside decisions in the event of a VAR intervention by more than 30 seconds.
At an unusually brief shareholder meeting in central London, clubs were given a presentation by Premier League director of football Tony Scholes showing that the efficiency of VAR decision-making has improved this season. Clubs were also reminded of their commitment to improving player behaviour after a series of yellow cards for unsportsmanlike conduct. However, there was no discussion of the referee’s case for arbitration. Manchester City against the league over its rules on associated party transactions (APT), despite speculation that a verdict has already been reached in the case. However, a vote on the database through which APT transactions are assessed has been postponed.
City have challenged the APT rules on the grounds that they restrict the club's ability to be competitive by limiting sponsorship deals with companies that fall under the same ownership umbrella as the UAE state-owned club. The APT rules were introduced following Saudi Arabia's takeover of Newcastle and were recently tightened after the clubs narrowly approved a league proposal.
Under Premier League rule X.31, there is no obligation to publish an arbitration panel’s verdicts, which are considered confidential between the two parties. Only if “the award contains decisions on questions of law or interpretation” can a preliminary ruling be published, subject to the consent of both parties, and this would not be the case if the panel ruled in favour of the Premier League rules as they currently stand.
Leading sports lawyer Nick De Marco, who this summer dealt a blow to the league's profitability and sustainability rules by representing Leicester in its successful appeal over an alleged breach, said the league should consider changing its rules to make such verdicts public.
“Everyone is speculating about the alleged outcome of the Rule X arbitration between MCFC and the PL, and who might have won what,” De Marco wrote in X. “But no one can know what the outcome is (if there really was one) or how it was arrived at, because the PL clings to absolute secrecy. It does its reputation no good, at a time when the government is considering the powers of a new independent football regulator, to keep such important matters of football regulation, affecting the entire competition, secret. If there is a decision from the very learned panel, it should now be published.”
