The novelties of the coming League: an added minute after each goal, suppression of 'penalties' and fewer VAR interventions

This Friday a new season of the League begins with notable novelties that will extend the duration of the matches and that seek to reduce the controversies over the signaling of penalties. The extension of the matches already became effective in the World Cup in Qatar.

Luis Medina Cantalejo, president of the National Committee of Referees, has announced that another interesting novelty refers to the signaling of penalties. From now on, “low intensity contacts” will no longer be whistled, the so-called penalties. Hands inside the area that “block shots that do not imply expulsion or an obvious goal opportunity” will not be penalized with a yellow card either.

With these novelties, the aim is to reduce criticism for lack of unification of criteria and reduce VAR calls. “When the VAR intervenes a lot, something happens,” said Medina Cantalejo in a recent meeting with the referees at the headquarters of the Asturian Football Federation. In that act, Clos Gómez (director of the VAR Project) indicated that interventions from the video arbitration room went from 143, in the 2021-22 season, to 179 last season. He also assured that a large part of them were in actions that meant a red card, since they went from 13 to 38.

favor the show

Football is pursued faster, more spectacular and with more goals. Arsene Wegner, former coach and currently FIFA development director, has put several ideas on the table to promote scoring chances. The most notable, and which FIFA will test this year in the lower categories of Sweden (men's under'21 and women's under'19), is the change in the offside. Offside will only be signaled when the attacker's body is completely in front of the last defender, in order to avoid throwing strange lines to analyze the position of the players. It is about modifying article 11.2 of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which dictated that there will be offside simply by having “any party […] closer to the opponent's goal line than the ball and the penultimate opponent ».

“If this leads to a more attractive football as established by FIFA's vision…. There will be more goals, it will be fun to watch,” said Jonas Eriksson, international referee.

Wenger also proposes that corners be valid even if the ball flies out of bounds and that throw-ins can be done with the foot instead of with the hand. Modifications that will take time to adapt, if they are finally approved.

Some innovations that come this season to a sport that is not very prone to changes. For many, the football regulations are perfect. Johan Cruyff said that football “had to be a show”. The bodies that regulate it pursue that purpose but, as Augusto César Lendoiro, former president of Deportivo de la Coruña, says, “it costs a world to achieve it”. For the Galician manager, football is already a show, but it needs tweaking. In fact, the decision that was made in 1992 stands out, when the rule of transfer to the goalkeeper was introduced. A decision that was the result of the sad spectacle that occurred in the Italy'90 World Cup, with several teams wasting many minutes, passing the ball between the defenders and the goalkeeper.

“That change was fundamental, that was a joke,” says the former president. Paco Buyo, the former Real Madrid goalkeeper adds: “I loved it because he played outside the area with his feet and had good vision of the game.”

Since then, few changes have been adopted by the IFAB, an institution made up of eight members. The modifications must be approved with six votes in favour, which does not make it an easy majority.

Slowdown

One of the innovations of the last few years has been the arrival of the VAR, a tool that has caused more loss of time due to the review of the plays. “The VAR is an element that slows down football, but gives it a touch of justice. “I think that all the regulations are made to speed up the game and the assignment was made to avoid wasting time,” says Buyo.. Preventing it from getting lost is the obsession of many, but also the advantage of a few. The main claim of Lendoiro, and who has recently adopted Xavi Hernández, is changing the football to effective time. Currently, LaLiga is, together with Serie A, the competition in which the least time is played with 53.2 minutes (data from 2022) while Ligue 1 and the Premier, with 56.3 and 55, respectively, are the they have more minutes.

Lendoiro proposes two times of 30 minutes to “avoid controversy, loss of time and remove responsibility from the referee when determining the end of the game”. “I think that soccer is the only sport without effective time. Don't we put fairplay in UEFA? Well, with this, the cheating would end,” said Xavi.

Another great claim made by a Spanish League coach is Simeone's request to eliminate overtime to go directly to penalties. The Argentine wants to reduce players' minutes in an increasingly demanding calendar. But FIFA, for the moment, has only allowed the five changes, a solution that seemed temporary due to the pandemic, but which has ended up becoming definitive.