Monday Cannon Fodder: rule changes

If you could change one Law of the Game, which one would it be and how would you change it? There are so many good candidates right now - handball, offside, cautions and sending-offs, added time, substitutes, and so on. Perhaps my feeling that the rules need updating will change with the new crop of Premier League referees set to start next season and the retirement of some of the old (terrible) ones.

But I doubt it. You know me. I have to stay on brand.

Part of the issue is that the Laws were written for a world without high-definition cameras, VAR, goal-line technology, and the other technological improvements waiting in the wings but not yet implemented. The Laws just don’t contemplate and could not have possibly contemplated the fringe cases that we see in the modern game.

I think most people in football have a general idea of how the game should be officiated from an equity standpoint. They have a feeling about what is fair and unfair, what should and shouldn’t be allowed, and how decisions should come down. The problem is turning that feeling into a rule that can be articulated and written down.

So have at it. What are you changing?