Are football's new laws overcomplicating the game?

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The Athletic FC

Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC Tactics podcast.

I'm Duncan Alexander.

This week, we're discussing football's new rules or more accurately, football's new laws.

We're going to talk some var, we're going to talk throwing countdowns,

and maybe have a throw around some suggestions for our own new laws.

With me are two men who love laws. They're Michael Cox.

Hi Duncan.

And Mark Harry.

Hello.

So last week, the International Football Association Board,

much better known as IFAB, approved a number of proposals at this annual general meeting.

The changes are set to come into force from June 1st,

so before the start of the World Cup and apply for the 2020-26-27 season,

today we're going to go through some of those proposals that relate to tactics and debate if they're any good.

We should start by saying that changes to the laws are part of the very fabric of football.

From the very beginnings of football in the 19th century,

three to things like the 1925 offside law, change to the 2018 change to goal kicks.

Football is always changing. It's never that constant.

But one thing that probably is quite constant is that people generally don't like change.

Michael, do you want to give a quick sort of overview of the history of the laws of football?

Yeah, I think it's worth pointing out that right from the outset,

when the FA was formed in the 1860s,

they were very clear about shaping the rules to create a particular type of sport.

So the first FA meetings, one of the big debates is that one guy from Black Heath Football Club in South East London

wants there to be hacking in football.

And what hacking is his base just kicking people in the shits?

No one else wanted this to be part of football and said, we're not going to do that.

And he basically stormed down and said, well, I'm not going to be a part of this.

And he basically formed what became rugby.

And coincidentally, as it happens when rugby formed their laws, they got rid of hacking as well.

But right from the outset, they said, look, we want this to be a technical game.

There was a debate to be had about whether it was just going to be completely physical

and the ball was almost like an afterthought, it was just a physical game.

But no, they wanted it to be about technical football.

They wanted it to be about quality play.

And I think in those early years, you can see that there is a determination

for football to be able to be played by basically different body shapes.

You know, it's not just all about really big, strong people.

You've got to be able to accommodate small technical players.

And I think that's worth considering in the light of whether we're going to talk about

the thing you have at corners at the moment with crowd and goalkeepers.

Like, football was not meant to be a purely physical game.

It was meant to balance the physical and the technical components of the game.

And that was true in the 1860s. And I think it should be true now.

Yeah. And I guess the other thing as well is that people kind of, I think,

bemoan when law changes, change football in a way.

But football has never been constant. It's always changed.

Goalkeeper has been able to handle the ball almost all over the pitch.

And then that got reduced, things like even nets being introduced

and the changes to what lines are drawn on the pitch, things like that.

Through to sort of seismic changes like when the offside law was changed in 1925,

which saw a huge jump in Goal's per game for the following seasons.

Probably helped Dixie Dane, but we weren't told about that.

Even something like penalty boxes, which we take for granted now.

That came in because, you know, when football became professionalised

and things became a bit more cynical, people realised that actually if someone was

through on Goal, you could just trip them.

And then you could put 10 men behind the ball at the free kick.

And it was eventually, it was like, well, we're going to have to introduce some kind of clear shot penalties.

Now, we can have arguments about whether sometimes you get penalties for things you don't deserve

and maybe whether the penalty box should be an arc or a box or things like that.

But again, that was just an adaptation to say, hang on, this is too physical.

This is too brutal. You shouldn't be able to succeed just by tripping someone up.

We're going to basically change the geometry of the pitch to reflect that.

And that common thread is still what we're essentially talking about with this upcoming season

where teams or coaches, however it is, is just their intelligent enough to not necessarily abuse the laws of the game

but find loop holes within it.

And then you do have to have that sort of moment where you say, okay, we can't let it go on like this.

So the salient won this season and kind of, yeah, the corners or maybe the throw-ins to a certain extent

and maybe players time-wasting a little bit.

The laws aren't sort of made or adapted rather randomly to try and just evolve it for the sake of evolving it.

It's because there's just, there's sometimes a law of diminishing returns.

It doesn't necessarily improve the quality of the spectacle, therefore it just needs to be tweaked a little bit

rather than it just being like, we're going to evolve this because it's been this way for the past 10 years

and we need a bit of a shake-up.

Yeah, absolutely.

So let's talk some of the new rules.

Starting with the increased remit of VR.

So there's three main changes in coming.

So let's go through them one by one.

The first one, red cards are rising from a clearly incorrect second yellow card.

Maybe an example being Jacob Ramsey's second yellow for simulating its Manchester United this week.

Yeah, what do we think about that?

Good, bad, indifferent.

Good, I think this one makes a lot of sense to me.

I see it, you know, we've all seen it often enough to think, well, when a red card changes

the spectacle itself and the way that the game is played, then it is quite a big thing if you know that that example is incorrect.

My only query in question is what happens if it's the first yellow card that's the one that's maybe incorrect or soft?

Do you then think, okay, well, the second one is valid so we can choose one of the two that then have to be rescinded if you like.

So I don't know how they'd maybe overcome that loophole, but principally speaking, I think it does make a lot of sense to do it that way.

I mean, my starting point is that I'm anti-VAR quite like it to not exist.

So I do kind of object to any kind of creeping because I think you can always make the next argument.

As you say, what about the first yellow card?

Well, you say, well, that was my fifth yellow card and I'm suspended that week.

Like, do you do it for that?

Like, at what point do you say, no, we're definitely going to have a line there.

I suspect there probably isn't a point and VAR will just eventually adjudicate on everything.

The second one, mistaken identity. So when the referee penalises the wrong team for an offence that results in a reddit yellow card being shown to the wrong player.

To be honest, I'm surprised this wasn't a thing already because when I played under 9's football, it was always like there is no appeal apart from in the case of mistaken identity.

So yeah, I'm a bit surprised that wasn't in the laws already.

I think with all of these initial ones, they're designed to be quick decisions if you like.

Ones that aren't designed to take three, four, five minutes, which is maybe where a lot of the complaints have been for the AR.

The ones that we're talking about so far, I think the next ones a good example, is it just being sort of cleaned up within 10 to 15 seconds and just clearly identifying errors, if you like.

You mentioned the next one. The next one is around clearly, incorrectly awarded corner kicks, provided that the review can be completed immediately and without delaying the restart.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of instance where a shot takes a small deflection off a defender or maybe the goalkeeper gets a slight hand on it.

And you can usually tell by the reaction of the player who was shooting. So I don't object to that. I think within one replay often television viewers can see it.

Probably if you need more than one replay, tough luck. But yeah, I kind of think that makes sense to be honest.

I actually don't agree with this one. I just think it feels like one of those things that is the most evened out thing in a game of football you'll ever see.

Like if you get one going with you in the first half, it nearly always it just happens in reverse in the second half.

Again, they're where you draw the line because you could extrapolate that out to say that the one that happened was the most salient example that cost a team.

A win or a certain number of points that then lost them a place in the European spots or a place to stay in the league.

Obviously for the title, whatever it is, it's, I don't know, you either do it cleanly and properly or.

Yeah, I just worry, I guess they say without delaying the restart, but it kind of, you know, if you wanted to take a quick corner or a quick go kick.

I mean, yeah, although to be fair, teams do take ages setting up for go kick.

Final one of AR, the Chairman of FIFA's referees committee, a man, we'll remember I'm sure, Pierre Luigi Kaleena, a man who incidentally who, when refereeing was going through a periodic meltdown in this country in the 2000s, people would often demand that Kaleena was parachuted into the Premier League to take over refereeing.

It was always worth that because I don't think he was a particularly good referee, he was very distinctive looking, he clearly scared the players, he did have authority.

But I mean, his decision making, I don't think it was any better or worse than any other ref.

And I must have seen him do, but I don't know, 1500 games.

He was all right.

Yeah.

Yeah, so he's saying that there could be further trials of a challenge system as part of a two-year VR review.

This is basically an alternative to the full bells and whistles VR.

This is more like a coach's challenge, which we've seen in other sports like NBA where you get a set number of appeals per game.

And it's adjudicated at the side of the pitch, essentially.

I mean, it's been trialled in a few sort of smaller leagues in places like Italy and Malta.

It's obviously a very different approach.

Well, first of all, on the trial.

I mean, they're trial VAI and whenever I saw that being trialled, I thought,

well, there's so many issues here that I don't think quite make sense.

And they basically said, yeah, it's fine, we've done the trial, we're going ahead with it.

So I am intrigued to what extent this is really trialled.

Like, how bad does something have to be before it fails?

Because personally, I think VR doesn't meet that.

I also have an issue with this might be a weird point,

but I also have an issue with just the coaches having this level of impact upon the game.

I mean, we all accept that football managers, football coaches are a thing.

But when you think about it, they don't really have that much of an official role in the game.

I mean, if they, for example, if they want to make a substitution,

and the team is like, no, we're not making a substitution, we're not going to do that.

The managers don't have any right to say what is happening.

The managers don't have any official role to play at all.

They are in charge of the team and they organize certain things.

But I think if this is going to, if it's a challenge, it should be about the captain.

I don't think it should be about the manager who you can argue whether this is right or wrong.

But the manager's going to be in contact with someone who's got a screen, et cetera, et cetera.

It kind of takes it away from the pitch for me.

And I don't like that.

I agree. If it is just to be the player, so the player is going to naturally then look across the touch line,

look at the manager, the manager is going to look at the coach.

She's in the stands or looking at the screen.

And it's all going to become blurred anyway, isn't it?

To a certain extent.

But I think the coach, there's always been a bit of a balance, I think.

And this goes for other sports as well.

I mean, for example, tennis, you know, you're not allowed to be coached from the sidelines.

I think it's important to retain the balance between, you know, people always say in these days

that, you know, the players don't have enough of individual authority on the pitch.

Everything's like structured.

Everything's free to determine.

And even though this doesn't have that much of an impact, I do think it would be tilting the power

further in favor of the coaches rather than the players.

For me football is about the players.

The coach is there to organise.

I don't think they're there to actually interfere with essentially the referee's decision.

For me, that's the captain's job.

Having a finite number of challenges as well just doesn't sit right with me,

where I think you retain the challenge if you get it correct, don't you?

Like other sports.

But what happens if you do get too wrong?

And then there's a really glaringly obvious mistake in the final 10 minutes,

but then you've run out of challenges.

I don't know if that sits right with me, that you still have an inequality there that doesn't work.

But the VL would still be able to interfere, right?

Well, I think this would replace VL.

That would replace VL.

Yeah.

And you could also see the reverse situation where a team kind of stores them up.

Nothing much debates, but it's happening in the game.

But they want to kill the game at the end of the match.

So they start appealing, very spurious thing.

So I can see the appeal for smaller leagues.

But I think I agree with both of you that it's as bad or as controversial as the current VL system is.

At least it's kind of independent.

It's an independent referee organised thing.

The other thing I think as well, which we've spoken about on this podcast recently in terms of home advantage,

is that there might be, if the home team, the home fans are kind of with them on that decision,

try to make a certain challenge.

I feel like there's going to be a slightly more skewed view.

Implicitly, not consciously, by the referees and the wider official team,

to try and actually, if the home team said we have an issue with this versus the away team,

I just feel like there would be an unconscious bias there to try and not fulfill the demands

of what the home team is necessarily doing, but would feel greater pressure to adhere to what their challenge is.

You'd be doing it with the crowd what five metres away.

You never get a successful challenge away, I'm feel dear.

Right. That's what I mean.

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Okay, next we're going to look at countdowns for things like goal kicks, throw-ins and substitutions.

Obviously quite a thing in the news this week with Fabian Herzler complaining about arsonals, delays and in arsonals,

when at Brighton and obviously we've seen recently the law brought in where if a goalkeeper holds on to the ball for too long,

the ref can award a corner, which I saw in the Wickenburton game last week.

It was nice to see one.

So they're going to expand this kind of approach.

So here's what I Fab have said.

They said if the referee considers that a throw-in or goal kick is taking too long or being deliberately delayed,

a five-second visual countdown will be initiated.

If the ball is not in play at the end of the countdown, the throw-in will be awarded to the opposing team,

while a delayed goal kick will result in a corner kick being awarded to the opponents.

So let's deal with that one first, what are your thoughts about that?

It's similar obviously to the current holding the ball when the goalkeeper's got a possession.

When I first heard it, I thought it sounded slightly mad because I thought the throw-in was going to count.

The countdown was going to start basically as soon as the player got the ball.

But it's actually once the referee decides the player is time wasting.

So it doesn't really matter, I mean if anything, I think maybe they'll get five seconds more than they used to.

Yeah, and it seems subjective.

That's how I feel about the current one that's been brought in at the start of this season,

with the goalkeeper's holding on to it for too long.

They're trying to impose something a little bit more objective with maybe a five second countdown

or with the case of the goalkeeper's eight second countdown,

to something that is still perceived as subjective, in this case,

if the referee is deeming it to be that the player is taking too long.

Are you doing a stopwatch or are you not?

It feels like there's neither one nor the other.

The other thing with the throw-ins is that obviously it's been a main theme for the Premier League this season.

But I think there's an extent to which the teams who have done it well

are going back as far as Stoke City, but, you know, Brentford in more recent memory.

They do it really well, to great effect.

And it's been such a key creative weapon for them to level themselves up

if you like against those elite sides.

And then those elite sides have used it and it's being kind of used and abused.

And it feels like those sorts of teams have ruined it for everyone

because you can get a lot of upside by having creative set players or whatever it may be.

That's never been the issue.

I think it's the fact that it's kind of the gluttony of players doing it.

Across the whole league and then taking so much time with it.

If I was a Brentford fan, I would feel aggrieved that it's like,

Well, hang on, that was a really useful weapon for us.

And that's been maybe taken away or at least curved a little bit.

That was the very thing that, I mean, to a certain extent,

it's kept them in the league.

Yeah, I mean, my view would be that the throw-in in its current form

has been part of the law since 1883.

And yeah, I don't think we've ever seen such a low standard of throw-ins in the Premier League.

I'd say 30% of throw-ins are foul-throws these days.

And they don't really ever bring that up.

Okay, next one is substitutions.

So what's proposed is the player going off will need to leave the pitch

within 10 seconds of the substitute board going up.

And if they don't, the player coming on will have to wait for at least one minute

and until the next stoppage in play to enter the field.

Yeah, it basically seems fine.

I mean, when substitutions first came in,

they were really just designed for injuries.

When a player really couldn't walk.

So they probably wouldn't have been able to leave the pitch within 10 seconds.

Whereas as now, you have to leave the pitch in 10 seconds,

which I think is probably quite a funny shift.

But yeah, I mean, it's basically fine.

Okay, and last one on this theme,

Inja players now have to go off the pitch after treatment for one minute.

Obviously, recently it's been for 30 seconds.

In one word, answers good, bad, indifferent, bad.

Yeah, I'm fine with it.

I think it's, I do think players need treatment too often.

That's the deterrent.

Yeah, there's not that much of physio can do within one minute.

I know sometimes he do have serious physical issues.

But actually, I do think players just go down too much.

And the game has stopped too much.

And the video comes on.

It doesn't really do anything.

We don't really need that info.

That's actually this isn't what we're going to necessarily speak about today.

But I do find that it's difficult because there are obviously cases

where players are genuinely injured.

But I like seeing the referees let the game flow a little bit.

And quite often, the player who is rolling around

and then realizes that they're costing their team

because they're not getting back into shape.

When they do get back up, I feel that the referee feels validated

to not stop the play.

Because it's just been an increasing amount of times in recent seasons

where the referee has stopped the play.

The player has treatment for a matter of seconds.

And they are obviously fine.

And then everyone's frustrated because the flow of the game has been disrupted.

The difficulty is that, yet, how do you know for sure

whether that player is genuinely injured or not?

I mean, a lot of the time, there's a thing with a football

where you get injuries where they are genuinely really painful

for one or two minutes, but then you're fine.

And the physio can't really do, man.

It's kind of like if you step on a plug or something.

It's like, I've broken my own play in football

and it wasn't painful at all.

But it was a serious injury.

And I've choked on a plug.

And in the first one or two minutes,

churning on a plug is absolutely the more painful thing.

But you can play on after one or two minutes.

And I think sometimes we just have to, you know,

okay, if it's a foul, it's a foul.

But sometimes if you get a kick on the foot,

you're going to be limping for a minute.

But the physio ain't going to be able to do anything really.

So I do think we need to cut down on these stoppages

where actually players just temporarily hurt.

But it should be where you need medical treatment,

not just you need a bit of time to get over it, in my opinion.

Okay.

We also got the news.

As someone who's controversial offside rule,

it's set to be trialled in the Canadian Premier League.

It's always interesting to see which leagues get to,

get to trial stuff.

The Ismian League got to trial kick-ins back in the 90s.

But the Canadian Premier League is going to try

the new daylight offside.

So essentially that means that rather than the attacking player

having to be behind or level with his defender,

they will only be offside if there is a clear gap

between them and the defender.

It doesn't seem to solve many of the issues that people currently have

with offside.

No, I mean, I don't understand this at all,

not just the rule.

But I mean, this is a VAI issue.

No one really had that much of an issue with the before VAI.

The Canadian Premier League doesn't use VAI.

So I don't really understand how this is going to solve anything.

The whole thing is about the freeze frame

and it's a toe over hanging.

If it's just doing it in kind of regular play,

I just, it's not a trial.

It's just not, it doesn't really apply to,

I mean, I watch football every week that isn't at a VAI level

and no one really talks about this kind of daylight offside.

It's just not a thing.

So I don't understand that.

I mean, I don't really understand what the rule solves.

There's still going to be marginal decisions.

It just means that the margin will be in a different place.

I think there would be a lot of goals that we just feel offside

that count.

And maybe you could argue that's better than the current situation

where I think a lot of goals that feel onside are ruled out.

But I just, I mean, you're not just going to get strikers

who can linger two yards behind the defense

and then kind of dip a leg backwards into an onside position

and hope that one of the four defenders is half a yard behind.

It just don't really understand how it works.

And again, to kind of make the reverse argument,

the whole point of football's laws is they're meant to be consistent across the game

and while this could in theory work in VAR leagues,

I just don't understand how you would officiate on that

if you don't have the television as a backup.

I think it'd be really, really difficult.

Because I think it's a danger.

A player will stay in an offside position constantly

and just one tiny bit will be offside.

I think that'd be really difficult for a linersman to cope with.

And I think it's worth pointing out.

Maybe it doesn't matter that much.

But can I even firmly give it quite a low level?

I mean, it's, you know, I was looking at the top scorers of the league last year.

None of them have played international game.

Top score in the Canadian league last year has just moved to Sweden,

which is usually kind of the 20th, 25th best league in Europe.

So that was clearly a step up for him.

So it's not a terrible level of football,

but it's not, I'm not sure how much of a useful trial it is considering the standard

and the lack of VAR.

You wrote an article I didn't hear about Fanger and his sort of curious understanding

of what makes football good.

I do, I see, yeah, I slightly struggle with,

I think when he's talking about the kind of spatial things in football,

I do find it difficult to understand his rationale for certain things.

And again, this, I just don't think it makes any sense really.

I think people have a problem with real marginal offside decisions.

But as soon as you use technology, you have to draw the line somewhere.

And so I personally don't think this will solve anything.

Is it because he, well, he said that he wants to give the advantage to the attackers.

But to your point, Michael, in terms of changing the laws to sort of benefit everyone,

would that not almost then diminish the quality of really good defending

and really good defensive lines where it's just like, well, you can,

it's far easier to abuse that as the attacker to not only dip the toe back to stay onside,

but also use that as a force to spring off from to give yourself an extra advantage.

It feels like his main reason is to give the advantage to the attackers.

But that in itself feels skewed only one way.

Yeah, and I don't think football particularly needs to make an attacking shift.

I mean, we don't want to see goals that feel onside being rolled out

and understand when someone's offside by a toe that is frustrating.

But I would argue that in certain situations,

actually, attackers have the advantage in offside in ways that we don't even think about

because we just take it for granted.

But I mean, attackers can stand offside and not interfere with play, and that's fine.

And we all think that is fine, but a defender can't do that.

I mean, a defender, because that is the offside line.

So I think actually, when the offside law was really, really strict,

you did need to make allowances for attackers.

But yeah, I don't think in itself just saying attackers need to have the advantage

really means anything unless it is a clear solution.

And I don't think that this is really...

Well, when they relax the offside law and allow people to be offside

but then, you know, come back to an onside position,

people thought that would ruin the game, and it clearly didn't.

And we also, this kind of obsession with more goals.

We need more goals.

I mean, 23-24 was the highest scoring English top flight season since the 1960s,

and that was, you know, with all the current restrictions.

And even this season is not exactly dipped super low.

So I think...

Also, there's a concern.

I'm not sure completely whether this would be the case,

but there's a concern that actually defenders would then just play deeper

and actually teams would become more defensive.

So what would be intended to benefit attackers might not necessarily do so.

Not necessarily the daylight thing, but I think the whole torso element

of the, is it the shirt line and the shoulder and stuff?

Like, I think that bit is maybe a little bit extreme.

There was the recent example with Jaden Antony for Bernie against Brentford

at the weekend, where it was a shoulder, like, no part of his...

Well, this is the thing, no part of his body that you could score a goal was offside.

But then, that's going to say, then, it's the shoulder.

But interesting that you say that because I looked into the numbers on it.

And since 2018-19 in the Premier League, there have been 59 goals scored.

This is taking out own goals.

There have been 59 goals scored that have not been with the left foot, the right foot, the head.

There have been 8,449 goals in total in that time.

So 0.7% of total goals in that time have been scored by another body part of from a certain player.

So it feels to me, maybe it's just my opinion, but I feel like that

Jaden Antony example of it being a shoulder that's ahead should be head, not shoulders,

knees and toes, basically.

My opinion is that maybe that was a bit of an extreme example.

Does that include own goals that...

That removes own goals.

It takes out own goals.

Okay, interesting.

Yeah.

Again, I just don't think it's easy to see the cutoff point.

It's not a clear...

When you actually look at what the t-shirt line means, it's quite confusing

because it's not the t-shirt sleeve.

And it's not basically the point where the arm of the t-shirt joins the torso of the t-shirt.

It's kind of in between from your armpit across.

And so when the VAR is trying to find the point on the slo-mo,

it's very, very difficult to be sure about that.

I don't think it makes any sense.

There was a really good example this week in the Fulham West Ham game where Alexa Woby

basically came off that exact point.

And I think you could have given the penalty in the end they didn't give the penalty,

but both were probably correct and or incorrect decisions.

There's such a sort of variance there.

I do appreciate that for Hamburg, there has to be a cutoff point.

But I don't necessarily think that has to be the same cutoff point for offside.

I think for offside, you can just take the position of the feet or head,

or whatever, really.

And do it that way.

But when you're trying to judge offside by this,

I mean, the armpit thing is a little bit of a misnomer.

But you can't be sure of the position of the body part

because it's not a distinct thing.

And I think that is unnecessary.

I just don't think offside has to be related to the handball law.

Basically, I think there are two different things.

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So before we get into our own law suggestions, what are the worst suggestions that have come before?

Because obviously as we've discussed, the laws of the game have been tweaked for over 150 years.

There's been various things that I think we can say have been pretty successful.

But quite a few that haven't worked. Michael.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned kicking earlier, but I do think that fundamentally misunderstood the value of a throw-in.

Or the value of the throw-in in relation to football, which is that it's not the same as a free kick.

And it shouldn't be the same as a free kick.

If you get a free kick on the touch line, which essentially a kick-in is,

you're essentially saying that having the ball kicked off you and it goes over the touch line,

is as bad as a really bad tackle.

Which is not the point of the throw is that his value is limited.

Most players can only threat 20, 25 yards.

Okay, if you've got a specialist to head into the box, that's fine. That's part of the game.

But yeah, that didn't make any sense.

They tried it in the Isthmian League.

And I think in the Bulgarian top division, somewhere like that.

And yeah, it didn't work.

I haven't necessarily got any suggestions of bad suggestions.

But we were talking before, weren't we, about ones that have sort of come and gone, faded away,

of the fifth and sixth.

I think officials where they would stand, essentially next to the goal post.

I think this was, was this in a pre-VAR era where they would try to flag,

if you like, even though it wasn't actually a flag, it was more of a wand for any sort of penalty appeals?

There's been a few like that where, why did that go away?

Maybe in this instance, it was because of VAR.

But there have been some that have kind of come and gone,

but with sort of not too much fanfare when they've left and sort of not entirely sure why.

Yeah, a similar one. I always remember is, remember when the era of,

if the ref, if the board didn't retreat to the right position,

the ref would march on another 10 yards.

And I mean, often, it sounds like a good idea,

but often moving a free kick closer to the penalty area is less optimal for the, for the team tation.

Remember, obviously, the Ferrari slash excitement in 2014 at the World Cup

when the vanishing spray was brought in.

That was, that was impressive.

For three or four months, seeing like the maddest thing you've ever seen on football pitch,

but now people see it all the time, it doesn't even register.

So, yeah, I mean, stuff does make its way into the game

and just become fabric of it.

Okay, then, let's become lawmakers ourselves.

If we had to propose one rule to change, to make it better, quicker, whatever.

What would you choose?

Well, I've always, I think I've said this before in a podcast,

really against the idea that you can basically kick for touch, particularly from kick-offs.

We've seen it a few times in the Premier League this year, and a few times over a recent decades.

And obviously, the problem is that if you get a threat and really close to the corner flag,

there's a limited amount of space you can throw it to because you can't go backwards.

You can't really go towards the keeper. That's too dangerous.

And so, actually, kicking for touch and boxing teams in is quite beneficial.

So, what I would do is that if you get a throw in really deep in your own heart,

you can bring it to level with the edge of the penalty box.

So, then you can throw the ball back.

Sounds a bit rugby, to me.

I don't really know enough about how rugby works, but basically,

if you were to have it on the edge of the 18-yard line, it would be harder to box in.

You'd have more space.

And if you do just end up hurling it down the touch line, then you can see possession,

let's say, 35 yards from your own byline rather than 18 yards.

So, I would change that.

And so, I actually looked at something that was seven years ago today,

like a complete coincidence.

I wrote a thing for ESPN about law changes.

And I said then that basically attackers should be banned from the 60-yard box at corners,

because I was just sick of not really in the Premier League level,

because it wasn't a thing then, but a lower league level.

Well, why did Arsenal do this seven years ago?

Well, I think that is a valid question.

I mean, my memories of playing under 9's football,

and I know that under 9's don't really play on proper pitches these days,

but the keeper would often be quite short.

We wouldn't be able to touch a crossbow.

You would just float the ball in, in the swinger, get a couple of men around

and it would go in.

And again, the point of football's laws.

And this is a bit of a problem I have with eye fabbers.

I think one they're really reactive.

And second, I think they're reactive to what's happening at the top level of football.

And I don't think that's what it's about.

The laws are consistent.

Or they're meant to be consistent throughout the pyramid

and throughout youth levels and everything.

And only 1% of games use VAR or on television or our professional.

VAR's majority of football games.

You should be accounting for basically people who aren't that good,

who can't always retain possession.

So it's things like they're misting with corners and with the throws.

Well, it's not just about whether it's an issue at Premier League level.

It's about your Sunday league team.

Like, you just shouldn't be able...

In my opinion, you shouldn't be able to constantly score goals

by crowd and keep for corners.

And you shouldn't be able to kick for touch and box in

because, you know, do you really want teams to be spending

their one hour of training a week working on getting out throws

by their own corner flag?

Of course not.

Again, it's just about balancing the physical

and technical components of football.

Well, for mine, I had this thought this morning,

but then I have since looked it up.

And it's already been suggested elsewhere.

But I think that the whole goalkeeper is going down.

It has been in football for quite some years.

That's obviously true.

But the fact that it is, like we're speaking about in general,

in terms of making the law changes,

is that it's being abused just a little bit too much.

And of course, we know that goalkeepers are the ones who go down

because they're the ones who can't then subsequently go off the pitch.

So then it allows players to have...

Well, they call them sort of tactical timeouts now,

but the idea that they can go have a quick drink,

have a bit of a huddle, and try to sort things out a little bit tactically.

My sort of proposal would be that if that were to be the case,

it might be, well, it can't be the goalkeeper who can go off,

but they have to then elect...

If you're going to have treatment, they then have to elect

for any outfielder and they can choose to then be

the one who subsequently goes off for...

Could be 30 seconds, could be a minute,

depending on what the latest law changes are.

But that you do have to have some sort of form of deterrent

to stop the goalkeepers doing that,

because at the moment the officials are kind of helpless

to the fact that it is a loophole within the laws that are,

as I say, being not only used, but abused,

and quite regularly at that.

And there's so much...

In all of these, I think there's a lot of copycat culture.

You can talk about it from a corner perspective,

long throws, et cetera, where everyone's looking at each other

and thinking they seem to be having some success there,

so we're going to do the same.

And when that just kind of ripples through the whole

granted talking about more of the Premier League here,

but it can ripple across wider leagues, then,

I think that's when something has to be done about it.

So I'd maybe say an outfielder has to go off the field

for a certain period if it is the goalkeeper who goes down.

Okay. I mean, I think mine would maybe be bringing

an additional referee on the pitch,

which obviously was a thing in the 90th century.

It's a thing in sports like American football

where I think they sport more stuff.

And I think we're slightly living through a slight epidemic

of refs getting in the way of the ball.

I think it's happening more now than ever before.

And there's so many drop balls.

Maybe bring back the old, competed for a drop ball while we're at it.

But I just think it would help refs

to kind of manage a half rather than, you know,

as the game gets ever more physical and faster

than trying to keep up with the whole game.

Would that supersede VR in that you're having more officials

but just on the pitch?

Possibly, but I think to Michael's point a minute ago,

it's something you could introduce at all levels.

I mean, obviously there is a cost in terms of finding officials

and stuff, but I think it's a lot more roll outable

to lower leagues.

And then finally, just, I mean, Michael touched upon it,

but I Fab, it's quite a, I mean, I lost Michael

to give us sort of quick explanation of how it's made up,

but it's quite a curious kind of setup, really.

And it's quite, I was going to say fun.

But in fact, it's almost fun thing.

You can actually go through in the minutes

for every I Fab meeting back to the early 20th century,

maybe even beyond, around line.

You can actually go through, if you go to the 1992 meeting,

you can see them come to the decision

to bring in the back past law.

And it's quite nice just seeing it there.

But Michael, do you want to kind of explain how it's made up

and why that gives British and Irish football

such a big advantage?

Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about the I Fab is

it was actually formed before FIFA.

So FIFA was formed at the start of the 20th century,

the home nations wondered no part of that.

But they had already formed I Fab basically

to be in control of the laws of the game.

And originally it was just four members,

I think England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

And now it's only eight members

of which half of them stole those four associations.

So the home nations do, and always have,

basically had control over the laws of the game

because even now there's eight people on the board

and you need six votes to get anything through.

So any law change, any proposal or change,

needs buy-in from at least two of the home nations

for it to go through.

And one of the classic examples of this,

where there's always been,

pretty much always been a bit of a difference

between the home nations and what the rest of the world thought

was the concept of substitutions.

So the home nations were always against substitutions.

It was 11 players.

Actually, it was one area where if you look at South America

in the 1940s or 50s, they just kind of ignore the laws

of the game and have substitutions.

I think, I think I'm just saying,

those games for Argentina,

he actually came on as a sub and played really well.

And so he kept his place in the team.

That wouldn't have happened anywhere else.

And it was only World Cup 1970,

where eventually it was agreed that substitutions

should be part of the World Cup.

They've been introduced in the 60s and Britain,

but that was 100 years after football had been created in Britain.

And it was a constant thing where,

yeah, everyone else was proposing it.

And the home nations were like,

no, we just think it's about stamina and endurance.

And to a certain extent, we're still having this debate now,

because I'm really against five substitutions.

But obviously, I mean, you look at the 1950s cut finals,

where players just keep on getting injured.

And this is the one game a year on TV

and it's constantly ruined because someone's gone off injured.

I mean, it's mad, really.

But that was maybe the biggest dividing line

between, I think, the home nations for your football

and everyone else.

Newcastle's last domestic trophy before they landed

the Carrera Cup last season.

The FA Cup in the 50s.

They played Manchester City and one of the city fullbacks

did his ACL in the first minute.

And that was that.

So, I mean, as a spectacle,

that's not very good.

Well, on that pleasant note,

we will bring today's podcast to an end.

Big thank you to Michael, to Mark and producer Mike.

As always, send us your thoughts

and topic suggestions in an email to TacticsPod

at theathletic.com.

Enjoy the laws of the game.

The Athletic FC.

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