FIFA to test new offside rule in Canadian league | OneFootball

The Canadian Premier League (CPL) will be the first professional competition to experimentally implement daylight offside. The pilot project, led by FIFA and approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), will begin with the start of the Canadian league season, scheduled for April 4.

During the testing period in the Canadian league, the new interpretation of the offside rule establishes that an attacker will be in a legal position if at least one part of the body allowed to score goals — excluding the arms and hands — is level with or behind the second-last defender. An infringement will only be called when there is visible space between the attacker and the defender, the so-called “daylight.”

In practice, a player will need to be completely ahead of the second-last opponent for offside to be given. The proposal aims to create a clearer visual standard, favor attacking play, and increase the tempo of matches.

Football Video Support (FVS)

In addition to the change in the interpretation of offside, the CPL will also introduce Football Video Support (FVS), a video replay system designed to assist refereeing in decisive incidents. FVS will be used alongside the daylight offside test and differs from VAR in that it does not have dedicated video referees and does not automatically review every play that could affect the outcome of the match.

In the practical implementation of the system, the two head coaches in each match will be responsible for requesting reviews a limited number of times. Requests may only be made in cases considered clear and obvious errors in decisive incidents, such as goal or no goal, penalty or no penalty, direct red cards, or mistaken identity. At the same time, the fourth official will be responsible for reviewing all goals, checking whether any infringement was committed by the team in the buildup to the play.

For a review to be triggered, coaches must hand a card to the fourth official immediately after the incident in question. The procedure was defined to avoid unnecessary delays and ensure compliance with the laws of the game, which do not allow decisions to be changed after play has restarted.

Although it does not replace VAR, Football Video Support represents a more accessible alternative for the use of technology in professional football. The joint implementation of FVS and daylight offside in the Canadian Premier League will serve as a basis for evaluation by FIFA and IFAB, which will analyze the impact of the changes before considering possible wider adoption in international football.

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.