The International Football Association Board will discuss Arsene Wenger’s proposed changes to the offside rule at their annual meeting later this month, according to a report.
Spanish outlet AS report that FIFA are set to formally propose a rule change during IFAB’s annual meeting on January 20th, with Arsene Wenger widely credited as the pioneer of the change.
Wenger suggested back in 2020 that offsides should be reworked such that a player is only offside if they’re completely ahead of the last defender, not if just one part of their body is ahead.
The change has been widely debated and pilot-tested since then, and AS claim it’s now closer than ever to actual implementation.
IFAB will analyse the rule change on January 20th, before potentially debating the proposal at the General Assembly in Wales in February.
If the initiative reaches that February meeting, its approval is reportedly highly likely, and the intention would be to implement it at the start of 2026/27.
But this isn’t the only changes under consideration, with a couple of other proposals to be debated as well.
One is a two-minute exclusion for players receiving medical treatment, aiming to minimise time-wasting, with the evaluation of pilot testing of the change proving favourable.
Another potential change is to VAR, with the potential to expand the system’s remit to include second yellow cards and corner kicks.
Second yellow cards seems like an obvious addition, with long breaks in play already commonplace for such incidents. It seems odd that a direct red card will always be checked, but a red card stemming from a second yellow never is, even though the result on the game is the same.
As for corners, it would be good to eliminate the most egregious errors, but it’s just going to be a matter of figuring out whether that benefit is worth the time wasted on checks.