Yorkshire rivals help swing vote to reduce substitutes

LEEDS UNITED and Sheffield United have successfully seen off an attempt to keep the Premier League’s five substitute rule next season.

As a concession against the 2019-20 campaign resuming at short notice after the coronavirus lockdown with a condensed fixture list, football’s lawmakers approved a temporary change allowing sides to bring on five substitutes from nine instead of the usual three from seven. The International Football Association Board kept the option open for 2020-21, but yesterday a small majority of Premier League clubs voted against adopting it again.

The change would have favoured clubs with bigger squads, and voting seems to have largely followed those lines, with Chelsea leading the nine in favour, and the Yorkshire sides amongst the 11 against.

Sheffield United were vocal opponents of last season’s change, an important factor in Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal leapfrogging them in the final standings, with Jose Mourinho’s side qualifying for Europe.

Like Blades manager Chris Wilder, Leeds coach Marcelo Bielsa favours working with a small squad, although he did make particularly good use of his extra changes in the final nine matches of the Whites’ Championship run-in, and they are understood to have been favour of keeping matchday squads at 20.

The clubs also voted to follow the full FIFA protocol on the video assistant referee system, which means referees will be encouraged to use pitchside monitors more to decide on goals, red cards and penalties.

VAR will also recommend penalties are retaken if a goalkeeper steps in front of his line before saving.