The new season of the Premier League is only days away now, so we want to look at what’s new ahead of the new season. Here are the rule changes in the Premier League and how they will affect games.
The offside rule.
It states that “a player who is clearly offside should not become onside on every occasion when an opponent moves and touches the ball.” What that basically means is that sometimes a player can still be ruled offside if the ball deflects off an opponent before getting to him. In actual fact, this rule was implemented in the Premier League last season, but it just got incorporated into the laws for real this summer. The aim is to allow a better flow of the game and not punish defenders for unintentional deflections.
A player is still onside until the last part of his body is in front of the first part of the last defender
Another new offside rule you’ve been seeing all over social media lately – where the player is still onside until the last part of his body is in front of the first part of the last defender – will not be coming to the Premier League yet. FIFA will be trialing that new rule in other leagues first before bringing it to the Premier League.
Premier League will have a winter break
For the first time ever, the Premier League will have a winter break! For years now, players and coaches have complained about the really tight schedules Premier League teams have, especially compared to their counterparts. Premier League clubs that qualify for European football compete in 4 different tournaments every season, meanwhile, their counterparts in Spain, Germany, and France compete in 3. On top of that, these other guys in other leagues still enjoy winter breaks, but the Premier League has never afforded its players that luxury. But all that will change this season. Between January and February 2024, the Premier League will go on a two-week break to allow the players to relax a bit halfway into the season. The players and managers have been clamoring for this for years now.
More playing minutes
One other thing they’re most likely excited about is that they’ll now be playing more minutes from the 2023-24 season because of the new rule that has just been introduced. Just like it was at the 2022 World Cup, every second wasted in goal celebrations, injuries, and other things will now be added after each half of football in the Premier League. The aim of this is to increase the average time spent on actual play per game. Last season, the average time the ball was in play in a Premier League game was 54 minutes, 49 seconds. That’s less than an hour of actual gameplay for a game that’s supposed to last an hour and a half, that’s pretty poor. Good thing the Premier League is looking for a solution to that. So, just get ready to see 111th-minute winners in the Premier League from the 2023-24 season.
Goalkeepers “must not behave in a way that unfairly distracts the kicker and fails to show respect for the game and the opponent.”
So basically, all that kicking the goalposts, throwing the ball away before the penalty is taken, trash-talking the penalty taker…all that stuff will now be punished. Honestly, this is about to take out a huge aspect of what makes the game so much fun. Those head-to-heads between players and keepers before a penalty is taken is what makes penalties super interesting. Also, goalies are at such a huge disadvantage; First, they have to stay on the line when the penalty is taken, and now they can’t do any trash-talking. Meanwhile, the penalty takers are allowed to hop, skip, and jump, stagger their run, waste time before playing the penalty, and all of that stuff which gives them a mental and psychological advantage.
Another new rule that will be implemented in the Premier League in the 2023-24 season has to do with the way unsporting behavior is judged and consequently punished.
From the new season, players will no longer receive red cards for certain tackles if the referee judges them to have made a deliberate attempt to get the ball. Now, for example, a player tackles a player in the box and concedes a penalty. If the referee judges that the player was actually going for the ball and didn’t have any malicious intent with the tackle, then the player won’t be sent off. Of course, this will make defenders a little more confident to go in for tackles, but at the end of the day, everything will still be down to the discretion of the ref, and different refs will probably arrive at different decisions for the same foul.
This next rule was put in place to protect the Refs. From the new season, only one person from each team will be allowed to stand in front of the technical area and the coach during a match.
The teams will also be prohibited from using technology to
challenge the referee’s decisions. The aim of this is to curb the inappropriate
behavior and foul language that matches
officials positioned at the technical area have been subjected
to during games in previous seasons.
Finally, one more exciting new rule is one which will enable the league to take legal action against fans found guilty of using offensive slogans and chants in the stadiums.
Fans are obviously a huge part of the game and they should be held accountable, too. Recently, there have been some really vile chants and comments coming from fans including racist chants and remarks mocking tragedies. Hopefully, seeing that legal action can be taken along with other punishments like stadium bans and revoking and/or suspension of club membership, occurrences like that will reduce from the new season.
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