Should Brentford's penalty have stood against Leeds?

In Sunday's 1-1 draw at Brentford, the VAR review took three minutes and resulted in Brentford's penalty against Leeds being overturned.

Referee John Brooks pointed to the spot, ruling that Dango Ouattara was pulled back by Gabriel Gudmundsson. Eventually the penalty was cancelled as Ouattara was offside.

But did the foul come before the offside?

The Ifab law states: a player in an offside position is moving towards the ball with the intention of playing the ball and is fouled before playing or attempting to play the ball, or challenging an opponent for the ball, the foul is penalised as it has occurred before the offside offence.

We have seen this a few times in recent seasons.

Most notably in March 2019, just before VAR came into the Premier League, an offside Harry Kane was pushed over by Arsenal's Shkodran Mustafi as a ball was delivered into the area. A penalty was awarded.

In February 2024, Newcastle were given a penalty on VAR review against Bournemouth. Fabian Schar was ahead of the last defender but had not committed an offside offence before he was pulled back by Adam Smith.

On Sunday, Ouattara was running towards the flight of the ball. Like Kane, you can make a case that he did not do anything to make him actively offside prior to the foul.

However, fans struggle to get on board with these situations where an offside player effectively benefits from being in that position.

It is why there was controversy over Arsenal's first goal against Wolves. That came from a corner which was awarded despite Bukayo Saka being offside.

When Toti Gomes headed the ball behind, Saka had not committed any kind of offside offence. The Arsenal player was running forwards but did not challenge Gomes or try to play the ball.

Yet Wolves would argue that Toti only attempted the header because Saka was behind him.

Gudmundsson's challenge was incredibly soft, however, and it should have led to a VAR review to be overturned if Ouattara was onside. But the evidence suggests this would not have happened.

Usually, the VAR will check the subjective element, in this case the foul. If there is to be a review the referee would be sent to the screen. While he is running over the VAR checks for any offside.

As the referee was not told to go to the monitor it indicates the foul had been cleared by the VAR, Michael Salisbury.

Leeds were denied their own penalty claim at the start of the second half when Nathan Collins tugged back Dominic Calvert-Lewin. It was a much clearer claim than the foul given against Gudmundsson.

There was probably not quite enough in it for a VAR penalty, but it certainly would not have been overturned had it been given.