Harry Diamond
Potential changes to the offside law are unlikely to be implemented ahead of Euro 2020 with the chief of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), Lukas Brud, admitting proposals from Arsene Wenger are ‘not up for approval’ ahead of this summer’s major tournament.
Former Arsenal manager Wenger, currently working as FIFA’s head of global development, has proposed a change to the law that would see players deemed onside should any part of their body be level or behind the last defender.
The introduction of VAR has seen the offside rule become a controversial topic with long delays being caused as the technology identifies fractional offside margins, though Brud has revealed that any changes will not be considered ahead of the European Championships as originally first hoped.
“It is not up for approval to come into the Laws of the Game,” he told ESPN.
“We have a very strict procedure that we introduced a few years ago that any proposal has to be submitted usually on or before Nov. 1 of the previous year in order for us to be able to discuss a proposal in detail with the relevant bodies, such as our Advisory Panels — the Football and the Technical. The Board of Directors then takes a decision on which proposals go forward to the AGM for approval.
“I’m not judging the proposal, it might be a good one, but this is not up for approval or for a vote as a concrete proposal to go into the Laws of the Game, it’s impossible.
“The meeting is also to discuss football and some ideas, and the AGM could say ok, this might be something we want to discuss further, or give it to the [advisory] panels to get their point of view and maybe do some trialling. But it won’t be used at the Euro as reported by some media. Nothing can be used without being in the Laws of the Game, and it definitely will not be in the Laws of the Game next season.
“Arsene Wenger is a highly knowledgeable and experienced football expert, so we certainly welcome his ideas, but we haven’t discussed it yet and we simply cannot approve anything that was not discussed on any level so far.”
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