Football’s new offside law explained

Football’s new offside law explained

Arsene Wenger, former Arsenal Manager and current FIFA Chief of Global Football Development, is proposing a radical change to the offside law.

What is the proposed change? Will teams play a different way? What will it take to implement this change? Is it necessary?

Written by Seb Stafford-Bloor. Illustrated by Alice Devine.

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#OffsideRule

[Swordopolis]

This change doesn't actually fix the problems with VAR, it's just here to increase goals scored per game

[Tomwithnonumbers]

I'm not convinced this encourages a higher defensive line. It gives the striker a major headstart in chasing for the ball, so the best way to defend it is to defend deeper where it matters less

[CCullen]

"Lessening the need for geometric crosshairs..."

But, it doesn't at all? All we're doing is shifting the crosshairs to the other side of the defender? Offside decisions will still go to the millimetre.

The only legitimately plausible offside solution is the Eredivisie, who have just created a larger margin of error. Also limiting offside to just the feet is a decent idea.

[Christopher_TG]

Or just do what MLS does: don't even bother with the artificial lines and just have the ref eyeball it when reviewing. If it's not "clear and obvious" that an error was made, then let the on-field decision stand.

[homosapien]

1) This is just changing where the lines are drawn and where the millimetres are measured.
2) It makes an already unfair game even more unfair for defenders.
And then people will moan that there no good defenders like years gone by. Guess what genius you were applauding the laws designed to discourage defending.
At this point why not pass laws to eradicate defending from the game entirely.

[Smonserratm]

This is just moving the problem to another place. This has always been a matter of precision. You can't call mm offsides with a technology that has an uncertainty of 10? 20? cm.

[tomastheboss]

What a rubbish new rule. I want more goals in football but at the same time I dont want to ruin the game for defenders.
In my personal opinion they should pick between the foot or the head as the only part of the body that can be counted as offside.
I couldn't care less if a players hand was offside or not

[OlieWoli]

This change wouldn't change anything with VAR it would basically just flip the line to the otherside of the defender but will still be as finicky, it should just be based on boots as you can have clear colour difference from socks and will only be up to 1m off the ground at most so easier for the lines to be drawn

[FootballAndSuch]

Imagine youve finally managed to explain to your girlfriend 'The Offside Rule' & now they go and change it.

[cathoderaytube]

I cant believe people are actually applauding this idea for being a solution to the VAR slowdowns. This just shifts the line from the attackers front to the attackera back. We will still be drawing lines for days.

Just use the boots as the only part of the body used to determine offside and place tracking dots on them or something.

[ishaandw]

Doesn't solve the problem though. Instead of the scrutiny being at the front half of an attacker, the scrutiny has moved to the back half. There will still be offside calls decided by those 2mm

[sebastiandalpozzo]

Doesn't it still come down to millimetres, what's the difference?

[VictorvanRossum]

The change that should be made is with the var. Look at tennis, field hockey or volleyball. If players feel that the referee mist a call than they can ask a referral and the var look at the situation again. The var comes with a final decision. If the player is right than they keep the referral, if they are wrong the lose the referral for the rest of the game. Problem solved, thank you.

[hihihiq]

Whoever made that Wenger drawing was clearly very Wenger-out.

[zsht]

This doesn’t solve nipple hairs and nanometers making players offside.

MLS or Eredivisie methods allow a margin of error, which mean that if it is too close to call by eye, then it isn’t deemed a significant advantage to be offside.

[xpoints]

WTF !
The smart defenders who rely on closing gaps beforehand than running would be screwed because an attacker would be already a foot ahead of them.

They'd just need their part of heel to be in line with Defender.
According to this rule only defender to survive this would be the athletic and quicker ones.

[thabosibiya]

Offside rules are changing

Alvaro Morata: say what

[thataaronb]

Slow defenders must be sweating right now. Harry Maguire, I'm looking at you.

[the_konando]

Still doesn't account for 2 key things:
1. Who decides (upon reviewing) what "frame" is the official moment the ball is being played? Alot can change between the ball touching and leaving the foot/head.
2. Whether you're using the current or the proposed rule, you'll still have the VAR officials checking down to the millimeter.

This rule change just makes it more of an attacking game...which isn't really the issue. There will always be clear and tight offsides...how does this change anything?

[williamstarck]

Defenses will probably more often sit deep because of this new rule. They'd rather just defend than try with an offside trap.