Jamie Carragher has labelled the new offside law changes as ‘terrible’ for football.
The Sky Sports pundit has hit out at Arsene Wenger’s proposals, with the former Arsenal manager now FIFA’s chief of global football development.
Wenger is set to pursue changes with football’s law-making body, the International FA Board (IFAB).
According to the rule, a player is onside if any portion of their body that has the ability to score a goal is level with or behind the appropriate defender.
In other words, for offside to be called, there must be “daylight” between the attacker and the defense.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino seems to be in agreement with Wenger’s proposal, saying that he is ‘certainly in favour of discussing a new way of looking at the offside rule’.
Back in 2020, the Wenger explained the rationale behind the proposed change:
“There is room to change the rule and not say that a part of a player’s nose is offside, so you are offside because you can score with that.”
“Instead, you will be not offside if any part of the body that can score a goal is in line with the last defender, even if other parts of the attacker’s body are in front.”
“That will sort it out and you will no longer have decisions about millimeters and a fraction of the attacker being in front of the defensive line.”
The Times have reported that although there were initial worries that the adjustment would result in an excessive tactical shift and provide attackers an unfair advantage, Wenger is said to have been persuaded by the outcomes of experiments conducted in Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands.
WHAT DID JAMIE CARRAGHER SAY ABOUT THE PROPOSED RULE CHANGE?
Taking to X, the Liverpool legend made it clear that he was not a fan of the changes:
“This will be terrible for the game as teams will defend completely differently than we see now.
Lots of lows blocks & teams being negative. How would you defend a set piece!!
“We don’t need more advantage for the attacker, the game is seeing more goals scored than ever!!!!”
It has already been announced that the Premier League will introduce semi-automated offside technology from 2024/25.
The 2022/23 campaign saw the highest number of goals scored in a Premier League season ever with 1,084 strikes.
This eclipsed the previous record of 1,072 set in 2018/19.
It certainly seems that Wenger’s proposed rule changes will benefit attackers.
With the advantage offensive players already seem to have with penalty calls, it remains to be seen whether these changes are a positive addition or not.
