Legendary Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is Fifa’s head of global development and launched his own offside overhaul to end VAR controversy last month.
It would see a player being deemed ONSIDE if any part of the body which can legitimately score a goal is level or behind the last defender — even if other parts are in front.
But Van Basten wants to go one step further and get rid of offsides altogether.
Van Basten first proposed changes in 2017 during his time as FIFA’s technical director to try and keep football as the world’s most popular sport.
Macro van Basten wants to get rid of the offside rule ? pic.twitter.com/ea8J0MARYy
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) March 26, 2021
He believes the game would be a bigger spectacle if the offside law was removed entirely.
The 56-year-old has spoken to Sky Sports and doubled down on his claims the offside rule is ‘not a good rule’.
“I am still very curious about the offside rule because I am convinced that it is not a good rule,” he begun.
“At least I would like to trial it to show that football is also possible without the offside rule. I am convinced that football would be better without it.
“Football is a fantastic game but I still think that we have to do much more to make it better, more spectacular, more interesting, more exciting. We have to work on that.”
The Dutchman told Sky Sports: “I am still very curious about the offside rule because I am convinced that it is not a good rule.
“At least I would like to trial it to show that football is also possible without the offside rule. I am convinced that football would be better without it.
“Football is a fantastic game but I still think that we have to do much more to make it better, more spectacular, more interesting, more exciting. We have to work on that.”
Van Basten’s ideas would drastically change the way the sport is played but the former AC Milan star has thought it all through.
Let’s cancel offside law
It has been a long time for the Existence of offside Law in the Football (Soccer) Matches, perhaps since the starting of the appearance of the football in the world ( Review the history of offside law on the internet ) , and since that time offside Law has been forgotten, and Nobody has paid attention to cancel it.
* Offside Law has the following disadvantages :-
1- Offside Law leads to No goals or less goals in many of the Football Matches.
2- Offside Law leads to failure of a lot of the Attacks due to restriction of the Movement of the strikers in the field of the opponent team due to the fear of offside trap by the defenders of the opponent team.
3- Offside Law makes the Football Matches boring and frustrating to the watchers and also to the players with loss of excitement as many attacks are not completed due to offside Law.
* Cancellation of offside Law has the following advantages :-
1- Cancellation of offside Law could lead to watching of some goals in the negative draw Matches or more goals in some of the other matches and at the same time the football will not turn to a Basketball game with many goals.
2- Cancellation of offside Law will make the play with more speed and more freedom as the strikers will not wait in each attack to locate or modify their position in relation to the position of the defenders of the opponent team, So the Mode of the play will be changed to become Faster and better.
3- Cancellation of offside Law will make the football game more exciting and more enjoyable to the watchers and to the players at the same time.
4- Cancellation of offside law will end the dispute over the misdecisions of some of the linesmen about the validity of the occurrence of offside in the matches .
Although the cancellation of offside law will partially limit the role of the 2 linesmen and there might be a slight increase in the number of goals in some matches , but these are not convincing reasons to stop its cancellation .
So I urge the FIFA to cancel offside Law by following the next steps :
1- to cancel offside law in the beginning in some of the friendly Matches for sometime to see the situation and to make a primary assessment .
2- Once the primary assessment gives an indication for the advantage of offside law cancellation , then they can proceed to the next step ; to cancel offside law in the 2ed half of 25% of the league matches to make a full assessment .
3- Once the full assessment proves the advantage of offside law cancellation , then they can proceed to the last step ; to cancel offside law ultimately and permanently in all the next league matches .
Finally I believe that any argument over the Advantages or disadvantages of cancellation of offside law will be unrealistic until a method of assessment ( like my previously mentioned method ) for that is done and the situation will be fully clear .
Adel Ismail Mekki
Cairo , Egypt
It would be a huge gamble for them to scrap the offside rule, although it would probably make the game much more entertaining.
But if they do decide to do it, your approach seems fairly clever.