October 28: Arsene Wenger’s attempt to rewrite the offside law appears to have hit the buffers, with the Canadian Premier League’s (CPL) season trial failing to convince the IFAB’s technical experts.
The CPL was used as a testing ground for Wenger’s proposed ‘daylight’ rule during the 2026 season, allowing a striker to remain in the side as long as any part of his body was level with the penultimate defender.
On paper, he did what FIFA wanted. Offside decisions fell by 54% and the change produced roughly 13 extra goals in 112 games.
But there was an unintended side effect: defensive lines dropped an average of ten meters over the course of the season as teams adapted to the extra space the forwards had.
This seems to have been enough to cool the enthusiasm.
The IFAB’s football advisory and technical boards, made up of former players, coaches and referees, gave little support for the proposal at meetings on Tuesday, making an extension of the trial highly unlikely ahead of potential law changes for 2027/28.
Set plays were particularly awkward. Defenses were forced to retreat much further to protect against attackers who benefited from a looser interpretation, changing the shape of phases that previously relied heavily on holding a line.
Canada also had another safeguard. The CPL simultaneously tested Football Video Support, a scaled-down alternative to VAR that allows coaches two challenges per game. This helped officials manage some of the fallout from the offside experiment, but it’s not a system available to most leagues.
When the trial began in April, CPL commissioner James Johnson described Canada’s role as an opportunity to put the league “at the forefront of innovation” and contribute to future laws of the game. In that sense, he did, but not with the response Wenger was looking for.
Other proposals fared better before the IFAB, such as support for changing the coin toss before penalty kicks so that the winning captain chooses the end or whether to take the first shot, rather than potentially benefiting from both decisions.
The goalkeeping injury test currently being used in England was also seen positively. It forces an outfield player to leave the field of play when a goalkeeper receives treatment, an attempt to eliminate tactical stoppages masquerading as injuries. So far, it has only been applied twice in 80 Premier League games.
Wenger’s offside proposal, however, now looks like a failed experiment rather than football’s next big law change. The CPL gave him a full season in the wild. IFAB, however, has seen enough.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)
