Football’s lawmakers came together this weekend to try to fix the beautiful game. Or, in their words, to “improve match flow and player behaviour” to ensure that football remains “fast, fair and dynamic”.
Changes to the game’s laws from the World Cup onwards include the introduction of more countdowns to discourage time-wasting and increased power for football’s video assistant referee (VAR) system, which will now be able to review and overturn second yellow cards as well as corner kicks that have been awarded incorrectly.
But will football’s new laws, ratified by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) on Saturday, actually make the game any better?
Time wasters: countdowns for goal-kicks, throw-ins and substitutions
It’s easy to criticise people for constantly changing the laws of the game but, credit where it’s due, the eight-second rule that was introduced this season to stop goalkeepers wasting time by holding onto the ball has been a success.
Time-wasting, however, is still rife, in particular around goal kicks, throw-ins and substitutions, and that will now lead to the countdown principle being applied in those situations too.
There is, though, a key difference: when it comes to goal kicks and throw-ins, it will be up to the referee to decide whether he “considers” – and that’s the key word – there to be a deliberate delay, and only then will the visual five-second countdown start.
Is that really going to have much of an impact? And will this not lead to inconsistency in how the countdown is applied? Does Brentford’s Michael Kayode, a right-back, get more time to take a long throw on the left because he has to run across the pitch?
Should Michael Kayode be granted more time to take throw-ins? (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
It’s tricky because introducing a set time for every goal kick or throw-in to be taken wouldn’t be straightforward. When do you start the countdown? If it begins when the ball is in a player’s hands, players may delay picking up the ball (bear in mind that Premier League ball boys and ball girls must not throw the ball back to players now; instead, they have to re-spot it on a cone).
Perhaps a fairer system — not down to a referee’s discretion — would be that a timer starts as soon as the ball goes out of play, especially with the multi-ball system that’s in place. But that would still need to factor in time for a player to collect a ball, plus there’s also an argument that if a team has a throw-in specialist, such as Kayode, that player should be allowed to run over and take that throw, in the same way that a designated player takes a corner or free-kick.
To complicate things further, IFAB wants its laws to be able to be applied universally, which would be a problem in grassroots football when, as one of their members pointed out during Saturday’s press conference, the match ball ends up in a nearby river.
As it stands, it’s hard to see the introduction of a discretionary countdown making much difference, especially when it comes to throw-ins.
A countdown for substitutions — players must now leave the field of play within 10 seconds of the substitution board being raised, or their replacement will be prevented from coming on until the next stoppage in play after a one-minute period — is much easier to implement and makes total sense.
Verdict: 50/50
Wenger’s Law
Welcome to talk of daylight. Or, in the eyes of some, darkness.
Changing the offside law, in the way former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has proposed for the past six years, seems likely to cause more problems than it solves.
A quick recap: the current law states that any part of the attacker’s body that can be used for scoring that is beyond the second-to-last player is offside. Wenger’s idea is that attacking players will be deemed onside provided any part of their body that could be used to score is level with the second-last player. AKA, the ‘daylight’ offside rule.
A headline stat was released in the middle of January: according to data gathered by IFAB, 11 goals disallowed for offside in the Premier League this season would have stood under the ‘daylight’ law.
Except it doesn’t really work like that. Anyone who thinks that teams are going to defend in exactly the same way with an offside rule that represents such a shift is being naive. If watching teams retreating deeper and playing with a low block is your thing, great — you’re likely to see a lot more of it.
Close offside calls like this one against Burnley at Manchester United would not have been given under ‘Wenger’s Law’
Generally, it always feels like a good idea to talk to the people tasked with practically applying any law change, and in this case, that’s the assistant referee.
“I have no doubt that Arsene Wenger’s proposal to change the offside law is well-intentioned. However, there will undoubtedly be unintended consequences if such a change is made, notably more VAR delays as a result of the assistant referee not being able to accurately ascertain whether a player’s back leg is onside or offside,” Darren Cann, the former Premier League and World Cup final assistant referee, tells The Athletic.
“I think it’s completely impractical for an assistant referee to judge daylight as a concept, particularly as often an attacker is being blocked by a team-mate in a crowded penalty area and therefore the assistant referee simply can’t see the back leg of an attacker to make an accurate judgement.”
Good luck to the Canadian Premier League, where Wenger’s Law will be trialled soon.
Verdict: No
VAR tweaks… reviewing corners
No, no, no.
We could all see this happening once VAR was introduced. Where does it stop?
On Tuesday night, the Championship team that Snoop Dogg and myself support (Swansea City) drew 1-1 and conceded a goal that was almost certainly offside. There is no VAR in the Championship, though, and long may that continue.
Checking corners? Surely the last thing the game needs is more VAR delays — corners take long enough to set up as it is.
Maybe some Nottingham Forest supporters will beg to differ after they conceded the opening goal from a wrongly awarded corner in successive Premier League games earlier in the season. But those are rare cases.
Either way, FIFA is keen to give it the green light for the World Cup. The Premier League less so.
Verdict: No
VAR tweaks… reviewing second yellow cards
Yes, yes, yes.
It’s astonishing to think that IFAB took so long to address such a fundamental flaw in the VAR protocol. Cann, for one, has been campaigning for change to expand the scope of VAR in relation to second yellow cards for seven years.
If you want an example of the injustice of the current laws, look no further than Pierre Kalulu’s scandalous sending off for Juventus against Inter in Serie A a fortnight ago.
A controversial moment in the Serie A title race as Pierre Kalulu is sent off for Juventus for not a great deal 🔴
Inter Milan’s players were celebrating the decision 👀
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/Hoy3g0IWPp
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 14, 2026
Kalulu was shown a second yellow card after referee Federico La Penna adjudged him to have pulled the shirt of Inter’s Alessandro Bastoni, who fell to the ground theatrically. Television replays appeared to show no contact had been made, but the video assistant referee (VAR) system is unable to intervene for yellow card decisions.
Verdict: Yes
Need treatment? Go off for a minute…
Players time-wasting by feigning injury had got out of control a few years ago, prompting a law change that stipulated any outfield player who required physio treatment would need to leave the field of play and remain off for a specified period. The exceptions include goalkeeper injuries (we’ll come onto that shortly), head injuries, injuries caused by fouls that result in a card being shown, if a substitution is being made, or when the player is set to take a penalty.
In the Premier League, that period of time off the field is 30 seconds. In Major League Soccer, it’s two minutes. According to MLS, the implementation of that rule dramatically reduced injury-related stoppages. It didn’t, however, go down well with everyone.
“If they make rules like these… we are doing badly,” Lionel Messi said, turning to a camera close to the touchline after he was prevented from returning to the pitch for Inter Miami following a poor challenge by Montreal’s George Campbell in 2024.
Two minutes is arguably too long. One minute, which is the time period put forward by IFAB this weekend, feels about right. But that does mean that referees need to ensure that bad challenges are punished with cards, or the injured party will, as was the case with Messi, feel a sense of injustice.
Verdict: Yes
And two laws that should be changed…
Solving goalkeeper tactical timeouts
We all know the drill by now. The manager wants to make some tactical changes to disrupt the opposition’s momentum… cue the goalkeeper dropping to the floor with a mysterious injury. While the physio jogs on to tend to the goalkeeper, his team-mates congregate around the manager for football’s equivalent of a tactical timeout.
Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Southampton team weren’t afraid to exploit that loophole a few years ago, Newcastle have done it plenty of times, too, and Manchester City used the tactic with Gianluigi Donnarumma in November, when Leeds had fought back from 2-0 down to level the game at 2-2. City went on to win the game 3-2, and Daniel Farke, the Leeds manager, was unable to conceal his anger.
Gianluigi Donnarumma’s ‘injury’ caused controversy in November (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Farke said it was “obvious” why Donnarumma had collapsed. “I asked the fourth official, ‘Do you want to do something?’ He said, ‘No, our hands are tied. We can’t do anything’. We should think about how we can deal with it.”
We should indeed, and it feels strange that IFAB is still trying to come up with a solution to the problem that goalkeepers, unlike outfield players, cannot be ordered to receive treatment off the field.
In the event of a goalkeeper going down and requiring treatment, why not bring in a rule that says an outfield player on their team has to leave the pitch for 60 seconds as soon as the game restarts?
How about a challenge system?
“In Italy, we say that in every wonderful marriage, there is a crisis after seven years,” Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referee committee, said on Saturday.
If you’re wondering where this is going, all will soon become clear.
“So it might be possible that people fall in love with the VAR, and then after some years… crisis,” Collina added.
The use of VAR in football continues to be hugely controversial and divides opinion. Collina announced that there will be further trials of a challenge system, which, naturally, goes by the name of Football Video Support (FVS).
With FVS, which is currently being experimented with in Italy, Malta and Spain, coaches are allowed to make two challenges per match.
Whether VAR was ever a wonderful marriage in the first place is a question for another time. But could FVS work as some sort of compromise?
Or, like me, are you happy to accept that a decision might go against your team now and again if that means you can celebrate a goal without fear of those dreaded three letters appearing?