In the last week, we have seen another serious injury happen because of the delay with offside calls. Nottingham Forest’s Taiwo Awoniyi collided with a post during Sundays 2-2 Premier League draw against Leicester City and on Monday was taken to hospital for surgery to repair a serious abdominal injury.
On Tuesday, the striker, 27, spent time in an induced coma for medical staff to monitor his progress, before being awoken on Wednesday evening.
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) May 13, 2025
However, his serious injury could have been avoided if assistant referees were allowed to raise their flag for obvious offside calls.
When VAR (Video Assistant Referee) was introduced to the Premier League during the 19/20 season, referees were told to not raise their flag for offside if there was a goalscoring opporunity to allow VAR to intervene afterwards incase of a wrong decision.
Whilst the idea is good in theory, it should only be applied to close calls.
During Sunday’s match leading up to Awoniyi’s injury, teammate Anthony Elanga was clearly offside, but because of the rules implented around the offside calls, play was allowed to continue which led to Awoniyi’s injury.
After Awoniyi collided with the post and the ball went out of play, the assistant referee went back and flagged for the original offside against Elanga whilst Awoniyi needed treatment.
This led to Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis coming onto the pitch at full-time, upset with the fact play was allowed to continue and the fact that the striker continued playing despite being in serious pain.
This unfortunatly isn’t the only incident that has occured because of obvious offside’s not being called early and leading to injuries.
Other Examples of injuries from obvious offsides:
In March 2021, Rui Patricio was playing for Wolves against Liverpool. Patricio collided with teammate Conor Coady whilst attempting to stop Mohamed Salah from scoring, with the flag then being raised against Salah.
This led to Patricio being carried off on a stretcher after 15 minutes of treatment.
In December 2023, John Stones was sidelinded for a month after a collision with Everton’s Beto, and just three weeks later goalkeeper Ederson was substituted after colliding with Sean Longstaff.
Another incident was the opening day of the 2023 season, where Tyrone Mings was also carried off on a stretcher after tearing his ACL in the 23rd minute in an attempt to close down Alexander Isak, who had been offside.
These are all injuries that could have been avoided if the obivous offside decisions had been called, rather than letting play go on when it is clear it will not matter because of the offside.
Awoniyi’s injury is by far the most serve, but more could happen, and player welfare must be considered.
