The upcoming offside revolution: Will soccer change irreversibly?

Football refereeing is evolving, changing and trying to adapt to the demands of the modern game. At least that is what IFAB, the body under FIFA that is responsible for everything related to refereeing, is attempting to achieve. Gianni Infantino has given a lot of prominence to IFAB and in an era of VAR controversy, sometimes they appear to take risky decisions.

As is the case at the start of every season, changes are made and different tests are drawn up, which in the course of time become reality. The next revolution has arrived, as MARCA reported, from the work of Arsene Wenger and refers to the offside rule.

The Frenchman, after listening to all parties involved, submitted the idea to IFAB to be tested in the coming weeks in competitions to be held in Italy and Sweden, among other countries.

Infantino asked FIFA's director of development to look for an improvement that would benefit attacking football. Wenger believes he has found it. The Frenchman thinks the spectacle will grow and proposes that offside should change. His idea is based on allowing the striker to be in front of the defender, as long as he keeps in contact a part of his body with which he can score a goal in line with the last defender.

Wenger has based this on a study done in the Premier League which says it would cut offsides by half.

"At some point measurements will be taken and it may even be determined that five or six centimeters is not offside. Everything is under study," said authorized IFAB sources to MARCA.

Of the four offsides that there are on average in each match, only two would be offside with the change in the rule, something that could enable the game to be more attack-friendly.

The initiative started in 2021 and is now becoming a reality with the various tests being carried out by FIFA. The first steps are very similar to those that were first taken with the introduction of VAR, semi-automatic offside and other innovations implemented in recent years.

Infantino has never hidden his desire for change

"It is being studied because we want football to be more attacking every day. In 135 years of history it has only been changed twice," Infantino explained.

"Arsene Wenger has presented us with a possibility and that is that there is no offside if the striker is forward, but a part of the body with which a goal can be scored is in line with the defender. That way we would have much more attacking football."