New Offside Rule Proposed

I don't think it is helpful to bring VAR into this discussion. VAR is technology that only happens at the elite level. The same laws apply to millions of games and players at all levels. The offside rule should be formulated to work independently of whether VAR is available so that it can be applied everywhere. IFAB tends to focus rather a lot on what happens at the top level of the game. The best offside rule is the one that makes it easiest for the linesman and referee to arbitrate correctly in real time without technology. This "daylight between the players" amendment might make offside easier to spot, especially when the linesman's view of the incident is partly obscured by other players. It's hard when a possible offside happens on the other side of the pitch and you have a whole lot of players blocking your line of sight.
 
I'm all for this rule, but only if they also make the goalpost smaller by 2/3 feet.
 
Isn’t the current offside rule actually working quite OK?

I know it’s messuring pubes, but camera technology, speed and the technical aspect will only get better from here.

For me, it’s the subjective/human aspect of VAR that is out of balance.
 
If it isn't clear by glance it should be onside. Before VAR absolutely nobody would have felt aggrieved if a high definition freeze frame revealed that actually the advancing players nostril was millimetres ahead. Because until the advent of VAR nobody would have considered that offside.

There is no discernable 'advantage' in a kneecap appearing to shade the most advance body part of the defender on a zoom so hard it converts a 4k image into 1995 MS Paint with cataracts.
 
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Offside rule was created to ensure attacker does not gain an advantage but now this is just as good as giving back the advantage.
 
Why is everyone assuming that defenders will drop deep because of this new rule? It make more sense to press even higher up to catch player offside right?

Tbf the rule was good as it is, world cup also had automated one which barely took any time. They should focus on the handball rule which changes every week.
 
This rule doesn't solve any problem. The miniscule margins will just go the other way when a player would be clearly offside only to have a millimeter of their arse played on by the shorts of the defender.

Also, even if it has to be implemented, shouldn't it be done across Europe? How will the Italian or Dutch teams manage defending one way in their leagues and another in Europe?
 
roonster09 said:
Why is everyone assuming that defenders will drop deep because of this new rule? It make more sense to press even higher up to catch player offside right?

Tbf the rule was good as it is, world cup also had automated one which barely took any time. They should focus on the handball rule which changes every week.
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I don't think so, it'll break the risk/reward consider that the slightest mistake will give a 1 metre advantage to an attacker.

On top of that, it makes it far more difficult for defenders to be aligned as they're using their peripheral vision to see where the attacker is without loosing track of what's going on. It's already hard when the attacker has his full body behind the line, it'll be near impossible if he can just keep a toe.
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
This is too big of a change. You'd need to be the thickest player of all time to get caught offside with this new interpretation. There's hardly ever any offsides where the entire player's body is offside.

I'd imagine Klopp is having sleepless nights with this new interpretation. His Liverpool teams have extensively used a high defensive line and relied on VAR to catch opponents marginally offside. They won't be able to do that anymore.

Actually, maybe it's a good thing!
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Eric_the_Red99 said:
This just seems to be a return to a previous interpretation of offside where there had to be ‘daylight’ between the attacker and defender. I personally thought that was the best version of the offside law, but the fact is that wherever you draw the offside line, there will always be plenty of cases that are very close to that line - something is either onside or offside, so you have to draw the line somewhere (unless you want to create a grey area in the middle with refs/assistant refs allowed to use their discretion.)

But the real problem with offside isn’t the current interpretation, or VAR, or even the crappy, inconsistent officials - the real problem is this constant obsession with fiddling with the law every season, and ahead of every major tournament. FIFA should just make up their damn minds and leave the law as it is for at least 10 years. I’d be very much in favour of only allowing changes to rules like this at set intervals, which would stop this constant chopping and changing.
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I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. Before 1990, it was actually the opposit, the defender needed to be in front of the attacker. They changed it so a player would be considered onside if he is level with the second-to-last player. It was far easier for defenders back then.
 
Nickelodeon said:
This rule doesn't solve any problem. The miniscule margins will just go the other way when a player would be clearly offside only to have a millimeter of their arse played on by the shorts of the defender.

Also, even if it has to be implemented, shouldn't it be done across Europe? How will the Italian or Dutch teams manage defending one way in their leagues and another in Europe?
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Yep, utter stupidity to think this change would solve anything.

It would actually make the situation worse.
 
I don't think it's that bad personally and the so called advantage people are calling out will be rare. It's an allowance for slightly mistimed runs but I can't see much of a deliberate tactic to it.

Others have said it but the obvious option is to do it on feet only and have a small buffer zone from the defenders deepest foot.

Quick decisions and goals not being ruled off for fractional movements no player can human judge is all we want.
 
Cloud7 said:
And has that tactic actually made the game better as a spectacle? It’s condensed the game into a smaller space and made less room for things to happen. If this makes things more entertaining then I am all for it.
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If it does result in teams being unable to push their defensive line as high then pressing the opposition becomes harder which will hopefully lead to games becoming more open and more entertaining football.
 
Oly Francis said:
I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. Before 1990, it was actually the opposit, the defender needed to be in front of the attacker. They changed it so a player would be considered onside if he is level with the second-to-last player. It was far easier for defenders back then.
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No, you misunderstand. I think it was in the late 90s or early 2000s, and it may have just been in England, but there was a short-lived directive given to linesmen that there had to be clear daylight between the attacker and the defender for it to be offside. It was basically an instruction to give attackers the benefit of the doubt. I remember it being quite popular at the time.
 
VAR is absolutely shite, should be in the fine tune stage, instead we have this new rule now. Giving attackers the advantage, will work against all teams that play the high line too. The inzaghi rule, born offside.

Goal line technology is the only thing that's helped, pausing and delaying celebrations after every var goal. Modern football is horrible now.
 
I think it should be based on foot position, and a similar principle to the ball being out of play/across the line. If any part of your feet is in line with the defender you are onside. So the heel of your back foot is in line with the toenail of oppo front foot and you're grand. Remove everything other body part from the equation, as it is discriminatory against those with large appendages.

Half joking, but I definitely think it should only be on feet position.
 
Oly Francis said:
I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. Before 1990, it was actually the opposit, the defender needed to be in front of the attacker. They changed it so a player would be considered onside if he is level with the second-to-last player. It was far easier for defenders back then.
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They're referring to this, whether they understand how much of a myth the "daylight rule" actually is or not:

It is a word that has never appeared - and never will appear - in the Laws of the Game. It is a word that, just three days into the Premier League season, already has the potential to become the most annoying word in English football.

It arrived into the mainstream footballing lexicon in the summer of 2002. Philip Don, a former Premier League referee, was offering some advice to Premier League linesmen during a pre-season meeting. A decade on from the introduction of the backpass law, the game was getting quicker and quicker, and the task of the officials to keep up was getting commensurately harder. Don then uttered the word that, 17 years later, has been infuriatingly exhumed.

“Philip told them that when they saw daylight they could be certain there was an infringement,” the FA's head of refereeing John Baker revealed at the time. “Suddenly people have picked up on this comment and used it wrongly.”
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I don't know why they just don't give VAR a time limit to make a decision, which is the simplest way to handle it. For me, if you can't see it in 30 seconds, then it should be given as onside.
 
Sounds like the mythical 'benefit of the doubt is given to the attacker' but with extra steps.

VAR will be able to make the right decision on this a lot (but not all) of the time, but won't it be harder for the actual linesman to call (e.g. before VAR intervenes, as well as all the levels of football with no VAR?) Currently they're looking for some part of the body to be ahead of the defender, but now they're going to have to look for a gap between the feet of an attacker and defender.
 
sullydnl said:
They're referring to this, whether they understand how much of a myth the "daylight rule" actually is or not:
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Thanks, never heard of that in another country.

So it was basically only a tool to (wrongly) help the decison making process and not a rule.

I don't think people realize how good linemen are at spotting offsides. Of course they make mistake but boy the task is so damn hard. I remember someone posted an exercice video in another thread and it get really complicated real fast when you had a couple of active players in the play.
 
Keep it the same. If your 1mm offside you've gained an advantage . 1mm can be the difference in a clean connection on a strike and one that gets sent wide. Can be the difference in you getting your toe on the ball before the defender .
 
whitbyviking said:
I think it should be based on foot position, and a similar principle to the ball being out of play/across the line. If any part of your feet is in line with the defender you are onside. So the heel of your back foot is in line with the toenail of oppo front foot and you're grand. Remove everything other body part from the equation, as it is discriminatory against those with large appendages.

Half joking, but I definitely think it should only be on feet position.
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Should be as simple as this in my opinion. This nonsense where they are measuring players' hand position with the back another players' heel does my head in.
 
Horrible idea, would cause teams to drop so deep. Just make it so there is 0 line drawing and refs get a quick time limit to make their offside decisions. If it's clear, they can fix it with VAR right away, otherwise the decision on the field stands. Moving where the line is still ultimately gives you those idiotic, subjective line placements where the ref is guessing where the armpit is and the tolerance is so small but the variance so big. 1 or 2 quick replays, get them the right decision, that's it. Or just bring in the semi auto offside if it's ready for implementation.

Really think introducing a time limit for the VAR refs would solve a ton of issues (and the direction of VAR refs having autonomy to give their real opinion to the ref on first glance, rather than search for a reason to excuse the ref and look for a mistake). Right now you have a situation with VAR that the ref doesn't make a call because he has VAR to be a backup, but the VAR doesn't make the call because there was something that you could argue was just around the grey area line. Even if both refs on replay would say it's mostly a pen or red, but it doesn't get given. Extremely dumb and it's purely because of that cat and mouse game that the situation brings.
 
Woodzy said:
Should be as simple as this in my opinion. This nonsense where they are measuring players' hand position with the back another players' heel does my head in.
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How are defenders supposed to legislate for foot positioning? Players aren’t even offside for hand positioning.
At this rate we may as well get rid of offsides.
 
cyberman said:
How are defenders supposed to legislate for foot positioning? Players aren’t even offside for hand positioning.
At this rate we may as well get rid of offsides.
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I foresee defenders practising their long jumping skills to play attackers offside.
 
It’s always funny when people spend years posting thousands and thousands of times on a football forum and yet still think a player’s hand can be offside.
 
AltiUn said:
Has Wenger actually managed to propose any change that hasn’t been complete garbage since getting this FIFA role?
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It isn't even his rule , souness suggested it before and wenger has heard him waffling and claimed it as his own. Such a stupid idea to try and implement.
 
Its quite astonishingly stupid isn't it. It doesn't solve the core issue with VAR offsides and adds to that a massive advantage to the attacking sides which already have a huge advantage over smaller sides that have to rely on playing more defensively.

As an added bonus, almost every team will be forced to play really deep because running in behind will quite literally be childs play. Not only will it be super easy to time your runs but you will already have a metre on your opponent from the go. You would be able to sprint earlier because you weren't so concerned about being offside so by the time the defender realises you are in behind you are probably uncatchable.

I really struggle to see how anyone can think this would be good for the game.
 
Am I the only one that actually liked this idea? I’ve always felt that the ‘daylight rule’ was the best interpretation of offside. Unless your whole body is completely past the last defender then you’re onside. It gives the advantage to the attacker so goals like yesterdays are comfortably onside, which makes for a far more entertaining game. I feel like we’ve completely lost sight of the reason the offside law was introduced. The original idea for the offside rule was to stop goal hanging, not rule out goals because an attacker had 1/5th of his kneecap past the last defender.
 
Malone_Post said:
Am I the only one that actually liked this idea? I’ve always felt that the ‘daylight rule’ was the best interpretation of offside. Unless your whole body is completely past the last defender then you’re onside. It gives the advantage to the attacker so goals like yesterdays are comfortably onside, which makes for a far more entertaining game. I feel like we’ve completely lost sight of the reason the offside law was introduced. The original idea for the offside rule was to stop goal hanging, not rule out goals because an attacker had 1/5th of his kneecap past the last defender.
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If teams start playing a lower block to compensate for the way easier runs in behind, it may very well make for a less entertaining game rather quick.

Nothing prevents the rule to adjust over time though if the overall impact is negative.
 
Malone_Post said:
Am I the only one that actually liked this idea? I’ve always felt that the ‘daylight rule’ was the best interpretation of offside. Unless your whole body is completely past the last defender then you’re onside. It gives the advantage to the attacker so goals like yesterdays are comfortably onside, which makes for a far more entertaining game. I feel like we’ve completely lost sight of the reason the offside law was introduced. The original idea for the offside rule was to stop goal hanging, not rule out goals because an attacker had 1/5th of his kneecap past the last defender.
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This doesn't necessarily solve the problem though because you'll still have an issue of measuring whether the player's whole body is completely past the last defender. They need 2 things, bigger lines (bigger margin of error) and better camera placement IMO.
 
antk said:
If teams start playing a lower block to compensate for the way easier runs in behind, it may very well make for a less entertaining game rather quick.

Nothing prevents the rule to adjust over time though if the overall impact is negative.
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Against any top team, mid to lower level teams do that anyway. The top teams prefer to be on the front foot. It would make it more balanced, yesterday's offside was just ridiculous, no way is that in the spirit of the game.
 
mctrials23 said:
Its quite astonishingly stupid isn't it. It doesn't solve the core issue with VAR offsides and adds to that a massive advantage to the attacking sides which already have a huge advantage over smaller sides that have to rely on playing more defensively.

As an added bonus, almost every team will be forced to play really deep because running in behind will quite literally be childs play. Not only will it be super easy to time your runs but you will already have a metre on your opponent from the go. You would be able to sprint earlier because you weren't so concerned about being offside so by the time the defender realises you are in behind you are probably uncatchable.

I really struggle to see how anyone can think this would be good for the game.
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So it'll be super easy to counter attack side that play high, like City and Arsenal with pace merchant forwards who don't have to be that great in other areas (Mudryk!). Like you say, get the runners going and hoof it over the top down the wings. Will change things tactically quite a lot.

Arguably it'll stop teams from suffocating games like City especially do now.

It's definitely something that needs trialing in less prestigious cup completions and lower levels of football before it gets a full roll out for sure to see exactly what happens.
 
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