https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...f-set-pieces-amid-concern-over-drab-spectacle The Premier League’s sporting directors have held talks about the ubiquity of set-piece goals and holding in the penalty area, amid concerns these trends are damaging the spectacle. Liverpool’s head coach, Arne Slot, said this week that his “football heart doesn’t like it”, when asked about the growing importance of set pieces, which have been responsible for 27.1% of Premier League goals this season, excluding penalties. The top flight’s sporting directors meet regularly as well as holding formal discussion, and the issue of set pieces has been a recent topic of conversation. Club managers and captains also have regular dialogue in meetings that inform the creation of the Premier League’s so-called Football Principles, which affect how games are refereed. The Premier League also consults all stakeholders, including fans, each year through its Football Survey, which can also lead to changes. The refereeing body Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) instituted a clampdown on players holding in the penalty area for this season after talks with the Premier League last summer. This has resulted in nine penalties being awarded for holding at set pieces, compared with four at the same stage of last season. Twelve penalties have been given for holding this season if non-set-piece incidents are included, a rise from nine last season. Referees are acting on instructions from the Premier League to penalise holding, but are hampered by the fact that under the laws of the game they cannot award free-kicks when the ball is not in play, so jostling and pushing before corners in particular is commonplace. Arsenal’s pursuit of their first Premier League title in 22 years has been fuelled by their set-piece prowess, with dead-ball situations producing 22 of their 59 goals, including 16 from corners, which has led to criticism from other managers. Brighton’s head coach, Fabian Hürzeler, criticised the time Arsenal spend preparing for corners, which with an average restart time of 44.4 seconds is the longest in the Premier League, before their 1-0 defeat by the leaders on Wednesday and suggested time limits be introduced. Referees will use a five-second countdown for throw-ins and goalkicks if they think a player is time-wasting from next season after a change to the laws by the International Football Association Board last weekend. Opta reported this week that 18% of goals in the Premier League this season have come from corners, the highest in the competition’s history. The Premier League has the highest number of set-piece goals in Europe’s top five leagues this season. Serie A (24%) is second, followed by the Bundesliga (22%), La Liga (19%) and Ligue 1 (17%).
Sigh ..... https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...vertising-its-another-fifa-player-welfare-win To nobody’s great surprise, Fifa grasper-in-chief Gianni Infantino has now announced that he has given commercial broadcasters permission to show adverts during World Cup water breaks, subject to certain conditions that largely benefit his organisation. Eligible parties will have the option to use a split screen, where they will only be able to hawk products for Fifa’s “official partners,” or use a full cutaway, where they will be allowed to show ads for anything. These commercials should not start within 20 seconds of the referee blowing for the start of the water break, and must end at least 30 seconds before play resumes. While fans in the UK watching matches on the publicly-funded BBC will be treated to uninterrupted coverage of Harry Kane or John McGinn squirting lukewarm bottles of Evian over their sweaty heads, their rivals at ITV are understood to be weighing up their options. If their pivot towards mid-game split-screen advertising during the current Six Nations rugby is any indication, viewers can probably expect to see a lot of ads for Aramco, Coca-Cola, Adidas, Visa, Hyundai, Kia and Qatar Airways this summer.
Another case of VAR going overboard? 23 players sent off after mass brawl in Brazil https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cly2ejpdp43o
They shoul;d have sent off a couple of thousand up at Ibrox yesterday..... Anyway, I'll never get the result from a Celtiv v Rangers game that I most want ... which is neither team to win or draw....
Who was playing chelsea at the weekend? They left four attacking players at midfield and the penalty area became a lot less crowded for everyone involved. I'd back VvD, Gomez, Konate, Grav, and Allison to not give up goals in that scenario.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/mar/19/premier-league-spending-rules-squad-cost-ratio The Premier League is poised to amend its new spending rules before they are introduced next season to give clubs greater flexibility in the transfer market. Under squad cost ratio (SCR) rules approved last November, clubs will be restricted to spending 85% of their revenue on player costs, with a levy payable to the Premier League, for distribution among the other clubs, in the event of a breach. A six-point deduction would be imposed if a club’s spending reached 115% of revenue. Under the terms of an amendment introduced at a shareholders’ meeting on Thursday, clubs that do not spend their 85% allowance for two seasons will be permitted to rollover up to 10% in the third year, enabling them to breach the cap without incurring a fine. A club, for example, that spent 80% of revenue on transfers, player wages and agent fees for two successive years would be free to spend 95% in the third year. Brighton proposed amending SCR rules at a shareholders’ meeting before Christmas and, after setting up a working group, the Premier League briefed clubs on its conclusions on Thursday. The Guardian has been told that none of the 20 clubs spoke out against the proposal, and it is expected to be formally approved via a postal vote before the end of the season. The clubs are not due to meet again until their AGM in June, and want the SCR rules agreed long before the summer transfer window opens. Brighton brought the amendment over concerns that SCR would in effect penalise them and other well-run clubs, who never came close to breaching profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), by removing their ability to bank PSR headroom for later use. The introduction of what the Premier League is describing as a levy offset mechanism is regarded as a small concession and is expected to be approved unanimously. The levy offset has been capped at 10% to avoid giving an advantage to clubs competing in Europe, where the SCR threshold is set at 70% of revenue.
Ibou was racially abused online. Find the racists and ban them from every football ground. Hold them accountable to the fullest extent possible. https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/li...Lkkzof0m7OMlvLs6mk_aem_8wqJ1bMxw6JbgmL_Aozm1w
I'm betting this was from behind a VPN.... which is about par for the course for these online sh!theads..... On the other hand - the President of the US and leader of the Free World is an openly racist commentator - so maybe they are not seeing themselves as bad when posting - but pitching toward a higher ideal of man.
I don't know why these smaller clubs do this to themselves. Capping spending creates a ceiling through which they'll never break. If a club's owners want to spend 2 billion on their playing squad, why should they be capped? Spending alone doesn't create instability. It is when clubs use debt to fund such spending that makes it dangerous. They should put in place a mechanism limiting the debt carried by the clubs. Allows ownership groups to invest in their clubs while limiting the downside to the institution and the fanbase if they decide to pull support in the future.
A million dollars says the French league will OK this .... Paris St-Germain have asked to postpone their Ligue 1 game against title rivals Lens which is sandwiched between the two legs of their Champions League quarter-final against Liverpool. PSG are scheduled to visit Lens in a top-of-the-table encounter on Saturday, 11 April - three days after hosting Arne Slot's side and three days before the second leg at Anfield. Liverpool are set to host Fulham in the Premier League on 11 April. edit: I do like the response from Lens: In response to PSG's request to France's Ligue de Football Professionel (LFP), Lens - who are chasing a first league title since 1998 - issued a statement saying they are strongly against the "troubling sentiment" if the fixture is moved to a later date. Lens added that their domestic league risks being "gradually relegated to the status of an adjustment variable at the whim of the European imperatives of some". "Beyond this specific case, the question raised is a more fundamental one: that of the respect due to the competition itself," a club statement said. "For one is entitled to wonder when, on its own soil, the league sometimes seems to be relegated to second place behind other ambitions, however legitimate they may be."
Good for Everton ..... won't hold my breath for them to get anything out of it of course. Everton exploring legal options over lack of sporting sanctions against Chelsea Merseyside club to demand formal explanation from Premier League Chelsea docked no points for rule breaches, unlike Everton and Forest https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-over-lack-sporting-sanctions-against-chelsea
Changes coming to the offside rule? In short, the rule states that rather than determining the offside line by drawing a line through the last part of a defender’s body, offside will now simply be a question of whether there is any gap between an attacker and a defender when you look across the pitch. A striker can be sprinting past a defender, be almost entirely past that defender, when the pass is struck in their direction, but if even a portion of the attacker’s heel is overlapping a defender’s foot, the attacker will remain onside. Soccer's offside rule may be about to change. Canada is up first
At this point I've given up expecting any new offside rule to do anything except change the specifics of the inevitable debates. Hope I'm wrong ...
Of course, they have to make it "more" than necessary. Can't it be the bulk of body above the hip-line? If you determine daylight there, then offside. If not, then not. Stipulating the rear running foot seems a bit extreme to me, and I'm someone who has wanted this change all along.
I'd rather this than someone's toenail being offside while 99.9999999999% of their body is behind a defender. But I am scared it will have the effect of eliminating all midfield play as all teams defend deeper and immediately drop back as soon as they're out of possession.
It certainly would generally give more of an advantage to the attacker, but: 1. It will still be possible to be offside by a toenail (just that the toenail is now in a different place). 2. As a result of 1. above, there will still be (possibly lengthy) delays while decisions are checked. 3. As you mention, I fully expect this to change the art of defending. A "high line" will no longer be practical and every team will use a low block as soon as they are out of possession. Football will be less exciting to watch.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ague-new-season-no-shirt-sponsor-gambling-ban Nine Premier League clubs have yet to secure front-of-shirt commercial deals for next season and 12 have not signed contracts, leading to increasing concerns that several may begin the campaign without a shirt sponsor. The imminent ban on shirt advertising from gambling companies is having a significant impact on all clubs’ commercial returns, other than those in the big six, with an executive at one club telling the Guardian that the collective loss of income from shirt deals could be as high as £80m next season. Gambling operators, particularly those serving Asian markets, have for several years been willing to pay far more than other companies to sponsor Premier League clubs in order to secure global brand visibility. After a consultation with the government the Premier League agreed to introduce a voluntary ban three years ago, which was delayed until the start of next season to give clubs time to find new sponsors, and the removal of gambling firms from the market has led to intense competition among clubs at lower prices. ------------- Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United are locked into long-term deals with Emirates, Standard Chartered, Etihad Airways and Snapdragon worth between £50m and £60m a year, although Tottenham’s £40m‑a‑year deal with the insurance company AIA expires at the end of next season.
All the degenerate fans can gamble as much as they want. We just don't want the clubs profiting from such this. Makes no sense. As we're about to enter a period of economic instability it makes sense that companies are unwilling to pay such high prices. But it also must be pointed out that brands are likely weary of investing so heavily when there is a rush to fill every inch of the shirts with brands and the clubs have to highlight their shirt sponsor, their sleeve sponsor, their back sponsor, their noodle sponsor, their airline sponsor, etc. and there is no longer a specialness to being a shirt sponsor at the premium demanded.
In fairness, it's usually 99.999% of their body that's level with a defender when the toey-nail pokes out. There is a difference. In any case, the mid body daylight thing seems to me to be the best way to define when you are breaking away from being positioned alongside someone, and assessing when you have broken away. This also seems to me the best way to assess gaining the unfair advantage (that whether its written in the rules or not - check with Hobo - is the point of this whole thing. Seems like it should be obvious where to draw the line, but no - as usual the boffins come up with some theory that means that an Erling Haaland or Alexander isak will be onside longer once they start to move than would a Sergio Aguero or Lionel messi
It isn't necessarily going to happen. If Barcelona play PSG in the CL final a high line won;t be very practical for them, but I will guarantee that they won;t play a low block either.....
Might change the athletic profile for CBs - with even more focus on speed and acceleration vs Harry Maguire.