FIFA’s Van Basten plans end of offside rule

TIME penalties instead of yellow cards, no offside rule and more substitutions – legendary former striker Marco van Basten, FIFA’s technical director, has a radical vision of football’s future.

“We must keep looking for ways to improve the game, to make it more honest, more dynamic, more interesting, so that what we offer is attractive enough,” the 52-year-old Dutchman told German magazine Sport Bild.

“There are lots of variations which need to be tested in the coming years.”

Van Basten, who became FIFA’s technical director last October, has a string of revolutionary suggestions, some of which he hopes could be in pl a c e f o r t he expanded 48-team World Cup in 2026 – and some of which would be hugely controversial.

He wants to see football copy rugby union, where only t he c aptai n can di re c t l y address the referee and a yellow card means a player is temporarily sent off.

“A y e l l ow card [in f o o t b a l l ] a g a i n s t a n opposing player doesn’t currently g i v e t h e attacking team much,” Van Basten said. “One idea is to replace the yellow card with a time penalty of five or 10 minutes. That would frighten teams.

“It is hard to play 10 against 11, let alone with eight or nine. We’re also thinking about allowing more than three substitutions during games.

“Last month I met [Manchester City coach] Pep Guardiola, who asked: ‘Why aren’t six substitutions possible?’”

Van Basten also wants to intro

duce a “shootout”, where a p l a y e r h a s eight seconds t o b e a t t he g o a l k e e p e r , t o r e p l a c e e x t r a t i me and traditional penalty kicks. “Each team would have five attempts. The referee whistles, then the player runs at the goalkeeper from 25 metres out,” he said. “The goalkeeper can’tcan leave his area and if he parries,parr it’s over. It would be spec spectacular for the spectators and more interesting for a playe player. In a penalty shootout, it is o over for the taker in a second.” Former AC Milan, AjaxAj and Netherlands goal m machine Van Basten is head ofo FIFA’s technical areas, r ranging from football tech technology innovation to refe refereeing. However, any of the far-reaching changeschan he wants would neednee to be ratified by the executiveex committee of world footba ll’s governing body.

If he gets his way, he would dump the offside rule.

“Football currently resembles handball where nine players, plus the goalkeeper, pack the penalty area and [the defence] is like a wall,” he said.

“They abolished the offside rule in field hockey and there were no problems.”

If that is revolutionary, van Basten is also concerned at how some teams have become experts at slowing the game down in the dying stages when they are narrowly ahead.

“We’re discussing how to make the time more effective in the last 10 minutes,” he said, adding that he wants to see the number of competitive matches reduced to protect the game’s top stars.