Jamie Carragher fumes at Arsene Wenger's radical change to offside law
Arsene Wenger's new offside law amendments will be "terrible" for football.
That's the view of Jamie Carragher, who did not hold back in criticising the former Arsenal manager's radical proposals, which the 74-year-old is set to pursue with the sport's law-making body, the International FA Board (IFAB).
Wenger, now FIFA's chief of global football development, hopes to introduce a 'daylight' principle to offsides. The idea was first discussed as early as 2020 and after positive trials in Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands, Wenger hopes to push forward as swiftly as possible to get the amendments over the line.
The principle states that a player is onside if any part of their body that can score a goal is behind or level with the relevant defender. In effect, there must be 'daylight' between the attacker and defender for offside to be called.
The proposition was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino who said he was "certainly in favour of discussing a new way of looking at the offside rule."
Supporters of Wenger's amendment point to the current rules as being problematic, with VAR seeming to exacerbate many of the issues with the current offside law.
But Carragher did not hide his dismay at the proposals. Taking to X, the former Liverpool defender wrote: "This will be terrible for the game as teams will defend completely differently than we see now. Lots of lows blocks & teams being negative. How would you defend a set piece!! We don’t need more advantage for the attacker, the game is seeing more goals scored than ever!!!!"
Victor Torp of Coventry City scores
In the 2023/24 season, a staggering 1,246 goals were scored, breaking the record set in 2022/23 for a 380-match season of 1,084 as well as the all-time record stands of 1,222 goals - scored over 462 matches in 1992/93.
The offside law and VAR's interpretation of it continue to be subjects of fierce contention after numerous controversial incidents this season, none more than Coventry's disallowed goal in the closing minutes of their FA Cup semi-final defeat by Manchester United.
In April, Premier League clubs voted unanimously to introduce semi-automated offsides. The technology was championed by Wenger at the 2022 World Cup, where it debuted with plenty of success.
The semi-automated system is comparably more exacting to its VAR counterpart. Twelve cameras are installed under the stadium roof which track 29 data points on the players. The measurements of passes . If a player is offside, the system alerts the VAR official, who makes the final decision.
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