The game of soccer moves at such a fast pace sometimes that even the most eagle-eyed referee cannot catch all of the infringements that happen during a match. I watch English Premier League (EPL) matches regularly. Few of them end without controversy.

In the past, there were times when offside goals were allowed to stand, handballs weren’t penalized, bad tackles were ignored by referees, and a host of other infractions were missed. Aggrieved teams and their supporters stewed over such bad referee non-calls for days, weeks, whole seasons, and in some cases, entire lifetimes.

Arguably, the most controversial incident in international soccer history is Argentine superstar Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal scored against England in 1986. It occurred during a quarter-final match between the two nations in Mexico City in that year’s FIFA World Cup tournament. Early in the second half, Maradona jumped for a high ball and used his hand to punch it past the English goalkeeper into the net. The referee missed the handball, and despite vehement protests by the goalkeeper and his teammates, the goal wasn’t disallowed. Argentina went on to win that match, and ultimately won the World Cup that year.

Maradona later said that the goal was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God.” That was blasphemous (thou shall not use the name of the Lord in vain, especially when telling a lie). Looking at the video, it doesn’t appear that there was much of his head, if any, involved in moving the ball into the net. In any case, God would have been a lot happier if Maradona had confessed to the referee on the field at the time the incident happened. But asking a professional soccer player to be honest in such a high-stakes game is probably expecting too much.

That incident is something English fans complain about to this day. It is sure to remain a permanent national grievance.

Because it is humanly impossible for referees to see everything that happens on the field due to the speed of the game, some professional soccer leagues, including the EPL, have recently introduced video assistant referee (VAR) systems. If there is any hint that an infraction has occurred that the referee didn’t see, the VAR officials can ask the referee to stop the game for a video review to see if some type of call needs to be made. Sometimes the halt is necessary so the referee has an opportunity to reconsider a potentially incorrect call that they have just made, and to reverse it if necessary.

Although VAR has helped stamp out errors, it has had some drawbacks. The main complaint is that it slows down the game too much. If a player scores a goal from what is thought to be an offside position, VAR officials can sometimes take several minutes drawing all kinds of geometric lines on their screens to make sure the player wasn’t in a more advanced position than the opposing team’s last defender. Another gripe is that there is too much subjectivity in the decisions made both by referees and VAR officials after reviews.

In the weeks leading up to the current FIFA World Cup tournament that began last week, various people offered a number of ideas that they thought would speed up the games and make them more exciting for fans. One of the suggestions came from Arsene Wenger, the legendary former manager of Arsenal, the storied English club. He currently works for FIFA. Mr. Wenger has called for relaxation of the offside rule to make it apply only when there is “clear daylight” between an offensive player and the last defender. He thinks games would end with a lot more goals, something fans always want to see.

Currently, if any part of an attacker’s body is judged to be further than the last defender by even a mere millimeter, a goal is disallowed for offside. I am tempted to take Mr. Wenger’s idea even further. I would suggest making whatever accommodations are necessary to take out the offside rule altogether. The game would have some resemblance to American football in one respect.

One of the most exciting plays in football is when a quarterback throws a deep pass to a wide-open receiver who then runs freely into the end zone for a touchdown. Corner backs (CBs) and safeties are the primary defenders responsible for covering wide receivers (WRs). It is their job to ensure that WRs don’t have that much free space to catch balls uncontested. When CBs and safeties “blow the coverage” (fail to properly track the movements of receivers), a WR can end up twenty, thirty yards, sometimes more, ahead of defenders. That is when WRs get those easy touchdowns.

For soccer, my idea is for attacking players to be offered the freedom to use whatever strategies they can think of to gain as much space as they need to free themselves from defenders’ shackles. The onus should be placed on the defense to track the movements of the attackers. That should make for a more free-flowing game and lead to more goalscoring.

The offside rule is perhaps the most difficult one to enforce in soccer. It slows down the game considerably because sometimes VAR officials have to do those on-screen measurements multiple times during a game—whenever a suspected offside goal is scored. Getting things right under the existing rules was a worthy goal to pursue. But it has become clear to most people that in some cases, the costs associated with the use of VAR may outweigh the benefits.

Eliminating the offside rule could be one step in the effort to streamline the beautiful game.