Blue cards, “body cam” and new VAR: the changes discussed by the referee and can revolutionize football

THE International Football Federation Council (IFAB), the body responsible for defining the rules of football, will discuss this Saturday the changes aimed at improving the behavior of footballers on the playing field and respect for referees. Among the changes that will be put on the table is the use of a body camera or “body camera” by the judge and that only the Captain of each team can talk to him during a game.

These two points appear in the agenda of the 138th Annual General Meeting of IFAB which will take place at Glasgowas well as stricter enforcement of the rules against players and coaches who engage in disrespectful behavior and also a review of the criteria to allow for better management of skirmishes that often occur during or after matches.

Another of the topics that the IFAB meeting intends to explore in depth is respect for the amount net time of each match, a premise that was respected and was evident during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with added halves of 10 minutes or more. The idea is to continue along this line but in this case trying to be more severe with the players who delay the continuity of the game, especially the goalkeepers.

On the table there will also be the need to continue developing the semi-automatic technology evaluate any advanced positions, to speed up the referees’ decisions in these situations, and the possibility of temporary expulsions with the introduction of the call blue paper.

Although all these aspects have been widely debated and agreed upon in previous meetings, there is still nothing on some criterion unit on its implementation. As regards the use of the blue card, the technical-football colleges of the IFAB They were in favor of testing it in the higher categories, after having used it in youth football.

However, the conduct of FIFA believes that any attempts to use this card should be limited to testing it responsibly at the lowest levels. The parent company of ecumenical football is expected to reaffirm this position on Saturday, when the point will be discussed, as announced by the organization on 8 February.

Another aspect that will be reviewed in Saturday’s conclave will be the portion of rule 12 which refers to offenses punishable following contact of the ball with a hand or an arm of a player (with the exception of the goalkeeper in his penalty area). The aim will be to clarify which contacts should be sanctioned and which should not.

In this direction, the revision of the rule 14which specifies the procedure for the execution of a criminal. In this sense, the magnifying glass will be placed on the correct placement of the ball in the penalty spot and on the invasions of the area before the player comes into contact with the ball.

Another point previously agreed upon by the IFAB panels for Saturday’s study is the inclusion in the rules of the game of communication of final decisions which are adopted following the intervention of the managers of the video referee assistance (VAR) system. The idea is that the decision of the maneuver is communicated by the match judge through the stadium loudspeakers, as already experimented in some competitions such as the Club World Cup.

Changes to the rules of the game can only be approved at the annual general meetings of the IFAB, a body which has IFAB representatives on its Board of Directors. FIFA and the associations of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Each of the British associations has one vote, while the ball’s governing body has four votes. Any proposed changes require 75% of the vote to pass.

Concussion replacement

The International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPro) and the World Leagues Forum have asked the IFAB to discuss the issue incorporation to the regulation of the permanent replacement of a player in case of suspicion extortionpractice already adopted three years ago in some competitions.

The request of the international players’ trade union has the support of various organizations linked to this sport such as the Scottish Professional Football League, the Professional Footballers’ Associations of England, Scotland and Australia, the National Union of Professional Footballers of France and the United United States Major League Soccer Players Association.

For FIFPro, a positive response from the IFAB “would mean significant progress in player welfare to ensure the integrity of competitions at national level”. The Chief Executive of the Scottish Players’ Association, Fraser Wisharthighlighted that dementia and its relationship with professional football has long been a major concern in the UK.

“The University of Glasgow studied the medical histories of more than 7,000 former Scottish professional footballers born between 1900 and 1976 and found that former players are 3.5 to 5 times more likely to suffer from dementia than ordinary citizens “Wishert explained.

In his view, unions, leagues and government bodies must take responsibility “to minimize, as far as possible, the chances of players suffering from dementia.” “We participated in this initiative because we believe that temporary concussion replacements are a step forward,” concluded Wishart.