Alex MacQuoid
Was Remo Freuler offside before he was brought down by Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada? That question has no clean answer after a fault with the semi-automated offside system left the decision unresolved and the football world unsatisfied.
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The incident triggered a penalty, converted by Breel Embolo, as Switzerland and Qatar shared the points in a 1-1 draw in Saturday’s World Cup Group B match in Santa Clara.
Before the tournament, Football Association placed considerable weight on its new, enhanced semi-automated offside system. The governing body scanned every player at the World Cup to produce unique, lifelike avatars, promising the most accurate visual representation of offside decisions ever seen at a major tournament.
After a wait of more than four hours, Football Association released a statement confirming that “a brief technical outage prevented the onside animation graphic from being generated.” Instead of the standard avatar imagery, the governing body published two static images that many found unconvincing. The statement maintained that the VAR lines showed no offside, and that the system’s core decision-making workflow was unaffected.
“The workflow of the VAR was not affected by this issue and followed the normal procedure in checking the on-field decision. The lines used by the VAR to check the position of the relevant players did not show the attacking player to be in an offside position in either of the two situations immediately before the penalty decision.” — Football Association statement
Speaking on ITV before the statement was released, Gary Neville voiced what a significant portion of viewers were already thinking.
“We all think it here. Everybody at home thinks it. Football Association are the host broadcaster and they have the semi-automatic decision that they can show us. There is a massive question over that because it is offside in my eyes until they prove to me different.” — Gary Neville
Delay produces doubt. A four-hour gap between the incident and any official explanation creates a vacuum that feeds speculation and erodes trust in the system Football Association spent considerable resources building. Whether the technology failed at an unfortunate moment or exposed a structural weakness in tournament infrastructure, the optics are damaging. Follow TipsGG for continued coverage of World Cup 2026 as the group stage develops.