Temporary expulsions, reprimands whoever approaches the referee except the captain and, mainly, the Wenger law, of offside, begin to appear on the referee’s horizon, and it cannot be ruled out that some of these new rules will appear in football in the 24-25 season.
Many complain about the changes that football rules are undergoing, especially everything in relation to the handsthe big stars of all types of protests against the complexity of interpreting the new norm. Some are difficult to explain, but they have all been subjected to different tests in previous yearsis debated and, finally, they are approved by the IFAB, always by a majority, although it must be recognized that the stained glass body has a very English touch, as four of the eight members that make it up belong to the British Isles.
What changes could be are already brewingmodifications or new rules, which can be introduced from the next IFAB meeting scheduled for the first months of 2024. Wenger’s law, that is, reversing the offside and allowing the attacker to stay in front of the defender, as long as he keeps the last part of his body in contact with the opponent, is already being tested in several youth tournaments in Sweden and Italy.
A total revolution
Las first tests are happening satisfactory and the referees consider that this modification would further adjust the spirit with which the offside was born (1925) and, without a doubt, would favor attacking football. The question is whether defenders think the same. FIFA, through IFAB, is very insistent on this change, which It would mean a total and absolute revolution in football as we understand it now. And they say this with statistics in hand.
The other big debate in the world of football concerns temporary expulsions. Interestingly, IFAB already approved the launch of this initiative in 2017, but only in youth, veteran and adapted football. Six years later, they are experimenting again and all without indicating that they could establish themselves in professional football.
The approved rule said: “Temporary exclusion is the penalty that consists of the immediate suspension that prevents you from continuing to participate in the game for a certain period of time to a player who committed an infraction worthy of a warning (yellow card). The philosophy of temporary suspensions is that an instant punishment can have a significant and immediate positive influence on the behavior of the offending player and therefore on his team.” This was left to each Federation for authorization.
We identify bad player behavior as a serious problem for football
Now everything has changed and it is now openly recognized that they can start temporary exclusionswhat They would last between 10 and 15 percent of the game time. This was recognized by Lukas Brud, one of IFAB’s strong men. “We have identified player misbehavior as a serious problem for football. We are looking at what we can do through changes to the rules of the game. A scheduled dismissal could be more of a deterrent than a warning. There is also a lot of interest from various stakeholders on the idea that only the captain can properly address the referee”
The refereeing team wants to put an end to the scenes that occur in almost every match and that refer to when The referee suddenly finds himself surrounded by players who berate him. They want to achieve a rule whereby only the captain can approach, and that the rest of the players who do so know or assume that a warning will occur in between.
The other big battle they try to remedy is none other than the waste of time. The stop time option has been discarded, but they want to activate some formula so that the loss of lost time is considerably reduced.
