FORMER HOLLAND STRIKER Marco van Basten believes the rules of the game need to be changed in order to keep football attractive, stressing the modern game has become like handball due to some teams’ defensive approach.
Van Basten has called for the abandonment of the offside rule, while also arguing in favour of the introduction of video referees and stronger action against timewasting to try to keep football interesting.
“There is so much timewasting in football. We need new rules to do something against it. Give players a red card if they are wasting time following a substitution. The pace of the game should remain high,” Van Basten told Algemeen Dagblad.
“Football should be tense, fair and attractive. I think it’s a major challenge to bear that in mind when it comes to deciding what rules we need.
“Just look at how football has developed. Modern football is like handball. You see 11 players defending on the edge of their own area.
“We might as well get rid of the offside rule. The rule is quite complicated and always leads to a lot of discussion. The players will get used to it quite quickly.
“Football has changed just like life in general has changed. Football was just a bit of fun 50 years ago, but it is big business now. A lot of money is involved.
“I also hope the video referee will be introduced before the 2018 World Cup. The video ref should focus on the key things, situations ahead of goals, penalties and red cards. There will always be small mistakes, but there is a lot of room for improvement.”
The simplest rule change would be if a team don’t score a goal they don’t get a point.
0-0 no side gets a point.
1-1 2-2 etc a point each.
That way if you don’t score at least 1 goal you lose.
Excellent idea.
Right lads – we’ll let you score one and then you let us score one and then we’ll start playing properly.
I’d prefer something more like Rugby. Maybe a bonus point for scoring 3.
They should do it so that no game is a draw in a league , a tie after 90 mins goes to penalties
I always thought in a draw the away team gets 2 points, home team one.
A bonus point for scoring three goals would just increase the gap between the big teams and the rest. Imagine the state of La Liga or the Bundesliga if that rule was introduced!
Some fine new product has arrived in Amsterdam, it seems.
Reckon VanB asten knows more about the game than the lot of us put together
He does. It doesn’t make his ideas right.
I think the rule needs changing, not abolishing
It’ll be like school again, playing world cup and it was always the useless lad who hung on the post that won it
Haha beat me to it! Good auld world cup and heads and v’s!
Peter that’s called hatching
NO MOOTCHING LADS
Ridiculous, it would negate high pressing and make teams sit back. Meaning very little in the way of counter attacks and a lot of possession without a lot of action.
He is dead right when he says football needs to change. It’s full of cheats, time wasters, cry babies and the rules are cementing the status quo when they should be trying to change it.
Interesting debate – UEFA have obviously already abolished penalising hand-ball in the box with a penalty judging from the officials completely ignoring 3 of them in last Wednesday night’s Europa Cup Final!!
I taste grapes, sour merseyside grapes
I’m trying my VERY best to have a laugh at it now, Marc, a bit of good-humoured banter, despite the persistent frustration!
Completely ignoring 3!!
You reckon you deserved ’3′ penalties.
Kop yerself on
WOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!!!
Was listening to football weekly a while back and jimbo had a great idea to make everything more competitive and interesting. 3 points available per game as usual. If you win you get 2 and if it’s by more than 2 goals you get the bonus. If you lose by just the 1 you get 0 points but if it’s 2 goals or more you are docked a point. It would certainly keep the table interesting and you could forget about counting on games in hand as being necessarily good things.