New punishment is to come
Football is facing the next rule revolution
November 28, 2023, 10:03 p.m
A lot could change on the football field next season. A player who intentionally commits an unsportsmanlike or tactical foul could then be subject to a time penalty. The regulators are clearing the way for experimental approval.
Another revolutionary innovation is emerging for international football. According to members, the rules keepers on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) are about to experimentally allow time penalties to punish intentionally unsportsmanlike or tactical fouls.
After evaluating long-term tests in lower leagues in England, the IFAB members made a recommendation at their working meeting in London to extend the test runs to professional football. According to IFAB member Mark Bullingham, also general director of the English national association FA, the rules keepers will make the decision at their next annual meeting in March in Glasgow, Scotland. If the recommendation is expected to be accepted, active players could have to leave the field for a certain period of time after corresponding rule violations starting next season, thus temporarily putting their team outnumbered.
Time penalties for certain types of fouls have long been an integral part of the rules in other sports. In handball as well as ice, field and indoor hockey, for example, the experience with this additional sanction option for referees has been consistently good.
Former world-class referee Pierluigi Collina, head of the referee committee at the world association FIFA and member of the technical subcommittee of the IFAB, called for the introduction of time penalties to be as uncomplicated as possible in handling the new instrument after the meeting in London. “It worked in the English amateur leagues, but now it’s about a higher level. We have to develop something that works and is worthy of top-level football,” said the Italian.
In addition to the time penalties, the IFAB is also planning measures against the increasing protests by players against referee decisions. In order to strengthen fair play, a vote will probably also be held in the spring on whether in certain cases only the captains of the two teams involved are allowed to discuss with the referee.