The ‘International Football Association Board’ (IFAB) approved the option of making five changes permanently from the next 2022-2023 season in top-level competitions and discussed possible alternatives to offside and the use of latest advances technology to support referees.
The body responsible for the rules of the game held its 136th Annual General Assembly this Monday in Doha, in which it ratified the changes and clarifications of the Rules of the Game 2022/23 that will come into force on July 1; kept the three ‘windows’ for substitutions plus rest and tackled trials on changes in concussion cases.
Although more than 140 competitions are involved in these trials, the Assembly decided to extend them until August 2023 “in order to gather enough data to make a scientifically valid decision”.
IFAB members agreed that testing should continue to focus on the permanent removal of any player with an actual or suspected concussion and felt further education is needed to ensure testing protocols are applied correctly.
The measure of the five changes was adopted temporarily due to the impact of the pandemic in 2020 to protect the players and after being extended on several occasions it was authorized until December 31, 2022, but the Technical and Soccer panels of the IFAB already raised in October of last year its maintenance permanently as approved this Monday.
As reported by the IFAB, its members also decided to increase the maximum number of substitutes on the team entry sheet from 12 to 15, at the discretion of the competition organizer, and considered the lack of respect towards referees and their behavior as a global problem. security.
In this sense, they agreed to establish initiatives to address these issues, such as referees wearing body cameras.
“Our obligation is to protect the game, to make it better and also to protect the referees from attacks. We are going to look for initiatives through education, because we never want to see players, officials, parents insulting referees again,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at a press conference after the meeting.
Infantino chaired the session, in which FIFA reported on innovations that could allow more competitions to use the ‘Light’ VAR technology, which has been proven in more than 100 matches, and on the success of tests with systems to help video referees to determine offside situations more quickly and accurately (so-called “semi-automated offside technology”).
The Assembly also discussed carrying out other tests, such as the explanation of certain refereeing decisions during a match and a potentially fairer calculation of playing time and throw-ins, which will require authorization and will be supervised by the IFAB and FIFA.
Infantino recalled that the games last 90 minutes, but pointed out that due to loss of time, the real space of the game is reduced to 45 or 48 minutes.
