New Soccer Rules - Premier League 2020 - Rules of Soccer - La Liga

Recently, the XFL, a new’ish football league, recently released their new rulebook for the up and coming season.

I say the XFL is “new’ish” because it has existed once before. Then went bankrupted. And now has returned in great fashion, donning a new rulebook to help set them apart from other American football leagues.

Some of the changes to the rules of football include a double-forward pass, shorter play clock, and the addition of a 3-point attempt after a touchdown, among other innovative changes.

This got sports fan talking across the nation about the changes, if the liked them, hated them, and whether the NFL should think about adopting some of these new rules.

With this conversation, it got me thinking about the other sport of football. What rules could be changed to soccer to help the sport grow and innovate? Such discussion has occurred before. Of course, the addition of VAR has been one of the single biggest changes to the sport.

Most of the rule changes introduced to soccer are not meant to dramatically change the sport, but mere to tweak some of the rules. However, what if we wanted to revolutionize the sport?

What kind of realistic rules could be implemented to evolve the game? Today I answer that question with my 3 rule changes that would help innovate the game of soccer.

1. Introduction of a Blue Card

The first rule changes would address fouls and other infractions. Currently, we have fouls with no cards, fouls that warrant yellow cards, and the fouls that get you sent off immediately with a red card.

But what about fouls that don’t easily fit in those 3 groups? Fouls that fans and pundits refer to as “orange cards” or something in between a yellow and red card. This is where the Blue Card comes into play.

The blue card, unlike a yellow card which accumulates, is a given to a player who commits a more serious foul than a yellow card but doesn’t warrant being sent off and missing the next match.

The blue card, much like penalties in in hockey, will get you immediately sent off only for a limited amount of time before you are able to return to the game. The same as a penalty box in hockey.

When a player commits a severe foul but hasn’t been warned before and is on the line of a red card, a ref can issue them a blue card and send them off for a limited amount of time (10 - 15 minutes perhaps) before they are able to return to the game.

During this time, the team is not allowed to make substitutions with 10 men on the field. Blue cards do not accumulate. If you are given a blue card, you serve the time immediately, and once done, you do not carry that card into the next game.

The main purpose of this rule change would be to give referees more control over how the punish players, allowing them to have more options at their disposal.

I see this being very useful in matches that are getting too chippy and out of hand. Instead of letting things get too wile and then issuing a red card, refs could be more proactive and get a player off the field until tempers can calm.

2. Introduction of a 2nd Referee

It always somewhat confused me, being a fan of basketball and other American sports, that soccer only has 1 Referee running the pitch. Sure there are line judges, but they are line judges not referees. Now we have VAR but once again, VAR is VAR not another referee.

Think about almost every other team sport: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, etc. They all have multiple refs on the field at a given time, watching different elements of the game.

In my opinion, line judges should be completely removed and offsides would be monitored by the use of technology. Much like goal line technology, offsides should be governed using technology and a single video line judge. When offsides occurs, the refs on the field will be notified via their watch the same as goals.

With the line judges removed, we would then add a 2nd referee. The two refs would police the game much like basketball referees do, taking turns as the ball moves from one end to the other.

When the ball is on one side of the field, one ref would be in the middle of the play down by the goal, as it is currently, but now, there would be another ref standing at midfield watching the game from behind the ball.

When the play moves to the other end of the pitch, the ref at midfield moves towards the center of the play, and the trailing ref would stop at the midfield and watch the play from back there—and vice versa.

In doing so, we would then use VAR for less instances, and instead, bring back the live referring that we know so well, but with the addition of the 2nd ref, calls would be more accurate, needing less interference with VAR.

And that’s something we all want.

3. Introduction of a 2-Point Goal

This would perhaps have the biggest effect on the game. Soccer is often criticized for being too low scoring, not having enough excitement, and ending in 0-0 draws far too often. The introduction of the 2-point goal would attempt to fix this.

The rule is quite simple: goals that are scored outside of the penalty box are worth 2 points. Goals scored within the box are worth the usual 1 point.

This addition would have several major effects. It would allow teams who are chasing a 2-goal deficit to still feel like they have a chance of turning the tide. It would force teams make tactical changes to adapt to this new rule.

Teams may be more reluctant to pack the box full of offensive or defensive players, forcing teams to spread out and make more use of the entire pitch. It would incentives the development of specialized long-shot players.

Fans of basketball likely know that the 3-point line wasn’t introduced to basketball until 1979. That’s right, it was on the verge of the 80's before the NBA added the 3-point line, and since then, it helped advance the sport more than any single-handed rule change.

Could soccer benefit from a similar addition? I think there is certainly something there to consider.

Revolution Over

That’s what I came up with: my 3 rule changes to revolutionize soccer. Adding a 2nd referee, a new blue card and the addition of a 2-point goal could have major effects on the sport. From policing the game better to making it more exciting.

What are your thoughts? Do you like these changes? Hate them? I would love to hear your own ideas about rule changes. Is there any rules you think need to be addressed and how? Let me know in the comment below.

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This post was originally published by me on Scorum Sports Media.

Follow me on twitter: @thefootgeneral