Question Number: 31119

Law 11 - Offside 12/19/2016

RE: Adult

Wellinghammer of Welling, England asks...

This question is a follow up to question 31114

Thanks, was not aware of the rule change. Given the protests from the crowd and some of the players I am not alone!

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi
The game struggles to explain law changes to players, coaches, fans and most noticeably this year with all laws with the exception of Law 2 getting revised. Many times it ends up as dissent from players, coaches or abuse from spectators. The referee is just the messenger. Yes sometimes they make mistakes yet who in the game does not? Referees hear dissent, abuse all the time about decisions even correct ones and then not a peep from the same people about a missed sitter or ball given away or an own goal. Very annoying to hear abuse about a 100% correct decision particularly when those doing it do not know the Laws.

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi,
Normally there are only a few changes to the Laws each year. This year was the most comprehensive re-write of the Laws for either 20 or 80 years (depending on your perspective) involving 96 separate changes.

While the changes did get a fair amount of coverage in the mainstream media, with that many changes it would be very lengthy and time-consuming to cover them all so most sources concentrated on what they considered to be the most important changes. Among those were usually the changes to the so-called triple punishment, allowing the ball to go backwards at a kick-off, changes to the punishment for off-field offences and changes to sanctions when a team official or substitute interferes with play. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the more esoteric change to the position of the free kick for offside offences (which in many cases will not make a big difference) did not often receive prominent coverage.

And although some articles did try to cover the changes in more detail, I have yet to read one that did not make at least 3 or 4 errors in their attempts to describe the changes. So in the end, about the only way to be aware of all the changes is to look them up on the IFAB website.

In case you are interested, there is a very useful ''Summary of Law Changes for Players, Coaches and Media'' available on the site, from the following link:

http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/211/Summary%20of%20Law%20Changes%20for%20Players,%20Coaches%20and%20Media.pdf

Answer provided by Referee Joe Manjone

Wellinghammer, I sometimes think that that FIFA changes many rules that do not need changing as players, coaches, officials and fans are happy with the game under the current or previous rules. I believe that this is done to create an atmosphere of confusion and crisis, and possibly bring more excitement to the game. Remember, the goal of FIFA rules is to make the game more interesting so that fans keep buying tickets. Over the past 60 years as a player and official, I have observed numerous instances where FIFA changed rules only to reverse the change, either the next year or several years later. I personally think that more piloting of considered rules changes is needed, and more input on rules changes should come from officials, coaches and players as they do in other soccer organizations. Thank you for your observation; it is valid.