https://downloads.theifab.com/downloads/lotg_changes_23_24_en?l=en The law 3 change basically covers the extra player on the field before a goal to celebrate situation (see World Cup Final). RARs can now make inputs to on field officials. Cool. Goal celebrations get their own bullet point for accounting for time lost. RIP to KFTPM. Penalty shoot-out is now official. Law 11 - Adds in the entire circular from last fall for what is a deliberate play. Law 12 - Adds in "or challenge for the ball" relating to SPA and DOGSO. Law 14 - "Clarification that the goalkeeper must not behave in a manner that fails to show respect for the game and the opponent, i.e. by unfairly distracting the kicker." Yeah sure. I await to see this dealt with at the professional level.
yawn. This is a “look, see , we’re doing something!” that doesn’t change anything. Referees already had the necessary support in Law to give these cautions. What they need is support in fact, not a Law change.
Not that I actually want goals being annulled for Law 3 violations, but there is a bit of irony that the only action from IFAB on this phenomenon is to basically (and officially) say "well it's actually no big deal." Very interested to see how this Law 12 change plays out. On the surface, it seems like a superficial clarification that allows for the yellow card to be given on DOGSO in instances where the defender is more or less "playing football" but maybe there wasn't actually a true attempt to play the ball (so, for example, a charge without a foot challenge). The additional text looks innocuous enough. But if you go back to the 2022/3 text, the big thing to my eyes is what's been removed. The parenthetical "e.g., holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the ball, etc." is gone. Couple that deletion with the Explanation in this document where it says "only sent off if the offence was committed without the possibility of playing the ball" and I think IFAB more or less just said DOGSO-Penalty is DOGSO-Yellow 99% of the time. Because now a defender could hold an attacker back and so long as he still had a possibility of playing the ball (e.g., from the side), it's yellow, even though he didn't actually attempt to play the ball. It seems the only thing that would be red now is pushes and holds that are directly from behind. Everything else seems boring, superficial or expected (Law 11)... but all pretty inconsequential.
Well here is my bone to pick. The IFAB should be careful putting things like this into the book: Statements like this will be used to justify the continued trend for subs entering the field after goals and at other times. Our sport used to be pretty tidy and well organized. Here it seems to be saying, we don't care about extra people on the field unless it has a clear impact. Now, should a goal be disallowed because a sub warming up on the other side of the field was sitting on the touchline when his team scored and VAR had video to show it? No, of course not. So I think the intent of this is good. I just think the general statement "Law does not expect the referee to penalise..." will be taken out of context and applied to more than just this specific case.
Oh wow. I have no idea how I missed that earlier. My bad! So, that means this is what I wrote at the beginning of that paragraph? Something that seems "football-related" (I am paraphrasing as that's not a quote in the document) but isn't an overt attempt to play the ball would get yellow instead of red? Seems like an attempt to add a bit more discretion into the discussion. But I obviously read this wrong the first time, so happy to be corrected again.
The Law 3 change isn’t well written. Obviously there are cases like the World Cup Final where there are clearly substitutes on the field by a few feet, and no one can confuse them for a player. But then you might have a case where a team is really playing with 12 players and the referee doesn’t notice, but if the newest player is a fullback 50 yards away from the play, they might not have ever interfered before the goal, but football definitely doesn’t expect a goal to be awarded when a team is playing a 12-man formation. And that’s all if the referee team can even identify who the “extra player” is to behind with! I’m trying to legislate for the edge case we saw in the World Cup final, they’ve accidentally eliminated the main reasoning for the law in the first place! So we are left with a situation where the referee needs to apply the law with common sense, which is exactly where we were before. I’d argue it’s even slightly worse than the old law, because now the referee can’t just ignore it but would have to make an affirmative call.
[reposting as I realize the formatting made my comments virtually unreadable and it is too late to edit. the regular text is from @code1390 's post and the italics my comments] The law 3 change basically covers the extra player on the field before a goal to celebrate situation (see World Cup Final). This is a mess in actual application below the professional level. It isn’t limited to that short entry, but only applies if the extra person interfered. That is going to be pretty hard to determine if a team had 12 players on the field rather than just someone on who wandered on right before the goal was scored. RARs can now make inputs to on field officials. Cool. Yawn. Goal celebrations get their own bullet point for accounting for time lost. Really? This was worth amending when it was already there? RIP to KFTPM. Penalty shoot-out is now official. What the heck, we already got hand balls…. Law 11 - Adds in the entire circular from last fall for what is a deliberate play. I suppose this makes sense, but it makes it harder to change the interpretation Law 12 - Adds in "or challenge for the ball" relating to SPA and DOGSO. This is a pretty significant watering down that is going to be used as an excuse to not give these cards Law 14 - "Clarification that the goalkeeper must not behave in a manner that fails to show respect for the game and the opponent, i.e. by unfairly distracting the kicker." Yeah sure. I await to see this dealt with at the professional level. yawn. This is a “look, see , we’re doing something!” that doesn’t change anything. Referees already had the necessary support in Law to give these cautions. What they need is support in fact, not a Law change.
As a lot of the instructional language had used the phrase "a challenge for the ball", I'm quite ok with this change, essentially bringing things in line with the general instruction and interpretation.
I think you’re right, yeah. Under the old rule we would run into edge cases where a player fouled the opponent accidentally - for example, with an accidental trip that came before the ball arrived, or with an impeding foul - where it was well within the spirit of the downgrade but technically wasn’t an attempt to play the ball. I have the vaguest recollection of this situation happening in possibly Arsenal game maybe two years ago? I think the IFAB is just affirming that not all honest footballing fouls involve imminently attempting to touch the ball.
For me I've always wondered are we supposed to treat an unfair charge as an attempt to play the ball? Now we can at least say they were challenging for the ball.
What do you mean by "unfair?" The explanation still says a player is sent off if there is "no possibility" to play the ball. So unless I'm misunderstanding, I think there's a bit of limbo on what I think you're talking about (a non-attempt that has no chance disguised as an actual attempt). I also wonder where this leaves the "accidental trip" that @StarTime is talking about; if it's an accident, but it's not a real challenge and there's no possibility of playing the ball, the explanation makes it sound like it's still red (even if the textual change maybe hints at yellow).
Does a careless charge (within playing distance of the ball) count as being only a dogso yellow since it wasn't a push/pull but isn't really an attempt on the ball (which always seemed to suggest a tackle/trip)? As I read it, that's the type of example that is clarified with this change.