Eight bizarre changes Fifa could make to football including scrapping the offside law and replacing penalties with ‘take-on challenges’
Marco van Basten in his role as Fifa's technical development director has proposed a host of radical changes in a bid to make the game more exciting
FIFA may have introduced the 48-team World Cup, but they are looking to bring in more bizarre rule changes that could change football as we know it - including SCRAPPING the offside rule.
New Fifa president Gianni Infantino made the first major upheaval to the beautiful game recently as more teams will be added for the 2026 World Cup.
And in an interview with German newspaper , the new Director General for Technical Development Marco van Basten has revealed more things he and the governing body are looking to alter.
The eight points range from the understandable to the bizarre - and are outlined below...
Removing the offside rule
Van Basten said: "Football is more and more like handball. Personally I'm curious about how football would work without offside."
He cited hockey which works without it, and believed teams could adapt with time. He added: "The game would be more attractive.
"The attackers would have more chances and there would be more goals. That's what fans want to see."
Scrap penalty shootouts and replace with "take-on challenge"
Anyone who saw Team GB's amazing gold medal win at last year's Olympics against the Dutch will know what this entails.
When there is a draw in a knock-out competition, we would not see a traditional shootout, but a head-to-duel between keeper and attacker.
The outfield player would be able to dribble the ball from 25 metres out and try to shoot or take it past the opposition keeper into the net in a time limit of eight seconds, with five attempts per side.
It was actually trialled in the early years of Major League Soccer in the US, but it was stopped in 1999.
Punish deliberate handballs less harshly
Van Basten believes straight red cards are too harsh, and he would rather see yellow cards handed out, or the possibility of a "Sin-Bin" type sanction, as seen in rugby, of 5-10 minutes.
Although those who remember Luis Suarez's blatant handball on the line in the last minute for Uruguay against Ghana in the 2010 World Cup will maybe see this as too lenient.
Captain being the only to speak with the referee
Much like in rugby, which has a far better relationship between referees and respectful players, Dutchman Van Basten wants to end the constant protestation from players towards the ref.
And by doing that, allowing only team captains to speak to the official, which should prevent the official being coralled into making decisions.
related stories
Introducing a basketball-style foul system
Van Basten said: “Like in basketball, a player can only make five fouls and then has to leave the field".
Players in that sport, once they have made their sixth offence in a match, are "fouled out" and cannot return to the court at all.
Reduce the number of games
This has been debated A LOT recently, particularly in England with fixture congestion and the lack of a winter break, which most other European leagues have.
But alongside Fifa planning to expand the World Cup, Van Basten says that to ensure greater “quality in the game…we should reduce the number of official matches per season from 80 to a maximum of 50."
This spans both international matches - as Portugal for example played 18 games between official and friendly matches on the FIFA international calendar last season.
But also domestically a Spanish club can play up to 67 official matches in a single campaign, a similar amount played by Premier League teams depending on the competitions they are in.
Increase the number of substitutes
One that seems to make sense - although Premier League and Football League teams moved from five to seven named subs in 2008-2009 was a major move.
But Van Basten wants to allow more actual changes to be made during a match - but is reluctant to waste time.
He said: "We talked about one or two additional changes in the case of extra time."
Making the last ten minutes flow better
Van Basten said: "We are very aware of the problem of time. The viewers want to see action and goals.
"The longer a substitution, the execution of a free kick or the treatment of an injured player, the more playing time is lost. We must be careful about this.
"We therefore also discuss making the last ten minutes of the game a period of effective playing time. The ball must roll every ten minutes.
"Because when a team finishes just before the end, they do everything they can to waste time, for example through substitutions."