Wenger Wants Offside Law Change

Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s chief of global football development, has suggested a change to the offside law, giving greater advantage to the attacking team, could be rubberstamped in a year.

The former Arsenal manager first proposed changing to a “daylight” offside law five years ago, when he took up the role with FIFA. Rather than an attacker needing to be level or behind the second-last opposition player, the idea is they can be ahead — as long as at least some part of the body is level.

There will always be situations where a player is offside by one millimetre, no matter what system you use, as it’s a binary law.

However, after years of low-key trials, a change to offside hasn’t moved any closer. The IFAB, football’s lawmakers, have remained committed to testing changes to encourage more goals, with offside a topic on the agenda on each of its meetings over the past few seasons.

In March, the IFAB [International Football Association Board] committed to “proactively identify competitions to conduct additional offside trials with a view to fostering attacking football and encouraging goal-scoring opportunities while maintaining the game’s attractiveness.”