New soccer rule will shake the foundations of the game

A new rule set to be implemented will see goalkeepers punished for taking their time on the ball.

A new rule in football is set to be implemented that will see a corner given if the referee deems the goalkeeper to be time-wasting while holding the ball.

Held in Belfast, the 139th annual general meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) saw a number of tweaks proposed to alter the way the game is played, with the highlight being the new time-wasting counter-measure put forward to avoid goalkeepers hanging onto the ball.

A limit of 8 seconds will be given to the shot stoppers once the ball is in their hands and they are deemed to have deemed to have “effective possession”; any time they are perceived to have taken longer, a corner kick - not an indirect free-kick - will be awarded by the referee.

New rule ‘much better’ than current law

At present, Law 12.2 of the game states that goalkeepers have a limit of 6 seconds with the ball in their hands, but this rule is rarely enforced by officials and as such has become an effective way for teams to count down the clock when needed.

Trials in youth leagues across Europe have been underway, with referees indicating a five-second warning to goalkeepers with a raised hand; media outlet The Athletic reported that “four corners have been awarded in the more than 400 games” but the visual aid was used in almost all of them.

Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of FIFA’s referees committee, told reporters in Belfast that the new method was “much better than what we’ve been seeing in Serie A and the other big leagues, where goalkeepers can have it for 20 seconds or more.”

It was also reported that the upcoming change will come into effect worldwide from the start of July but will be used for all of this summer’s Club World Cup, which starts in Miami on 14 June.

As well as this groundbreaking change, IFAB also made clear that leagues can decide whether or not to implement the ‘captain only’ rule, which states that only the team captain can speak to the referee, and not the rest of the players on the pitch.

There was also a hint of a change to the offside law, but this was not fully embraced or fear of giving too much of an advantage to the attacking side. At the time of writing, nothing has been changed regarding offside in the game.