Wenger's daylight offside trial unlikely to be extended
Arsène Wenger's "daylight" offside trial is unlikely to be extended, after it received little support from the expert panels that advise the game's rule-makers.
The rule-makers are IFAB, the International Football Association Board, which sets the laws of football. Its football and technical panels are made up of former players, coaches and referees. BBC Sport reports that those panels have now weighed up the trial.
Offside is one of the sport's most argued-over rules. An attacker is offside if they are nearer the opposition goal line than the second-last defender when the ball is played to them. The daylight idea tries to make that call clearer. In the trial, a player counted as onside if any part of their body was level with the second-last opponent. In other words, the attacker needed a clear gap, or daylight, before the flag went up.
The idea came from Wenger, the former Arsenal manager who now works for FIFA, football's world governing body. FIFA led the trial and IFAB approved it. The aim was to favour attacking play, and it was tested in the Canadian Premier League, where it ran through the whole season.
The numbers were striking. Across 112 matches, offside decisions fell by 54%. The trial also produced 13 additional goals, and the defensive line dropped back by three metres over the course of the season. Those are the figures the panels had in front of them, and they were not enough to convince them to keep the experiment going.
The Canadian Premier League also trialled Football Video Support, a form of video review that lets coaches challenge decisions. Coaches could make two challenges a game. Panels backed a change to penalty shootouts too. Under the proposal, the captain who wins the coin toss would choose either the end or the first kick, and the other captain would take the remaining choice.
Not every idea gained traction. Extending the five-second countdown for throw-ins and goal-kicks to free-kicks and corners drew little support. That countdown is the timer that forces a player to take a restart quickly, and some wanted it to apply more widely.
One rule did win praise. The goalkeeper injury trial, which is already used in English football, was seen as a success so far. It requires an outfield player to leave the pitch when a goalkeeper goes down for treatment, so the keeper is not treated for long while the team has an extra player. It has been enforced only twice in 80 Premier League games so far, so it is still early for a firm verdict.
What comes next is a step-by-step process. The panel meetings are the first stage towards any possible law changes for the 2027-28 season. For supporters, that means the rulebook could look different in a little over a year, even if daylight does not make the cut.
For anyone who has ever groaned at a flag that went up by a few inches, the debate is easy to follow. Attackers want more room to play. Defenders want the line to stay where it is. The trial was a test of whether a clearer line could give both sides something they can see.
