Was this offside? Technology fault leaves questions over VAR images

Was Switzerland's Remo Freuler offside before he was brought down by Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada?

It is the question that, for many, remains unanswered despite Fifa finally releasing images four and a half hours after the incident happened.

The move led to a penalty, converted by Breel Embolo, as the teams drew 1-1 in Saturday's World Cup Group B match in Santa Clara.

Before the tournament Fifa put a lot of stock in its new, enhanced semi-automated offside system.

World football's governing body scanned every player at the World Cup to create unique, lifelike avatars.

It was supposed to provide the most accurate illustration of offside decisions we have ever seen.

But it did not work and Fifa had to revert to drawing lines to the players and on the pitch.

Fifa released a statement saying "a brief technical outage prevented the onside animation graphic from being generated".

It went on to say the lines drawn by the video assistant referee (VAR) showed no offside and released two images - which remain unconvincing - but not the usual avatar graphics.

Within the move, two Switzerland players could potentially have been offside.

Fifa released an image for both as evidence they were onside. The first was for Embolo in the build-up, the second for Freuler before he was fouled by Abunada.

Fifa's statement read: "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."

The semi-automated technology is not flawless. It can be impacted by many things, such as players being close together or even something as random as ticker tape on the pitch.

When the technology fails in the Premier League there is the option to fall back to the old technology where the VAR draws the lines.

But the offside image is produced straight away, not several hours later.

"We all think [it was offside]," Gary Neville said on ITV before the statement was released.

"Everybody at home thinks it. Fifa 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."

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to create doubt it is delay. It creates a vacuum that feeds conspiracy theories. It might give the impression Fifa is hiding something.

"It's like a dictatorship," added Neville. "The idea that they hold this evidence internally and don't show fans of countries who are playing in tournaments is absolutely ridiculous.

"To not show the evidence of an offside - prove to us that it's offside! Show it straight away. Why not have transparency?"

We have seen the avatar animations in action in the opening games, and not just for overturned decisions.

We saw an example on Friday, with Tani Oluwaseyi flagged offside before Bosnia-Herzegovina goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj clattered into the Canada striker. Fifa provided the semi-automated animation, even though the VAR had not got involved.

It has been the same in decisions which are not close. In Saturday's later game Fifa quickly showed the graphic for Morocco goalscorer Ismael Saibari against Brazil even though there was no real question about him being in an offside position.

In general, Fifa has largely been very quick with offside decisions at this tournament.

With an audio alert sent to an assistant when a player is more than 10cm offside there is no need for a delayed offside flag.

The speed of this technology means the more obvious decisions are made quickly - but this was a tight one and was under the 10cm limit.