Last updated on April 10th, 2026
Domestic English football is again heading towards a close for another year and avid Premier League watchers have certainly seen some stories and headlines in the 2025/26 campaign, but a potential future story is already being written as we now have a planned live test of the ‘daylight offside’ rule idea. Many argue there have been enough changes to the rules over the years already and aren’t open to new ideas, but then, as fans, we don’t ever generally get a say about our sport do we?
The Video Assistant Referee technology has again dominated controversies this term with inconsistent and utter bizarre applications of the rules being used by referees. Camera angles are being used that would convince a drunk man he was seeing straight, VAR graphics rarely resemble what fans have seen on the pitch, and every now and then depending on who you are, you may or may not get an extra 5cm to play with when it suits certain clubs. This was all meant to make the life of referees easier and for the decisions to be consistent and fair. Hasn’t worked out that way at all though, in my very humble opinion, and has actually made a farce of what should be a simple and (to coin a phrase) beautiful game.
According to the powers that be, Daylight Offside would bring an end to a lot of this utter nonsense and it would prove to be both a fascinating, and monumental change for passionate Fantasy Football Players and those who use Betting odds calculator on a matchday – think of all those extra goals and assists that could be racked up, along with the added panic stricken yellow and red cards and potential penalties. I can’t for the life of me understand why they don’t just have offside set on where the players feet are, instead of the current situation were it appears even a fingernail (!) can make a player offside. A simple line, feet in line or not, easy.
The whole idea has been a long term passion of former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and in his position as FIFA’s chief of global football development, it seems he has finally got his way as the Canadian Premier League have now agreed to trial the change in their eighth domestic top flight campaign. It is a fantastic marketing and branding move by the CPL who previously hit the headlines last year with the ‘Icicle Kick’ – a bicycle kick scored between Atletico Ottawa and Cavalry FC during a blizzard.
They will now be the first league to trial pure daylight between players being the only indicator of offside. We will no longer be judging armpit hair, bulges in shorts, wind effect on hair or randomly measuring parts of the body that physically cannot score a goal. It should also bring an end to the injury inducing nonsense of playing on for 45 minutes because a lazy lines person cannot raise a flag and then having to drag the game back.
Given VAR has now turned the emotions of the ‘beautiful game’ into a spreadsheet building contest where you only know if you should cheer at the turn of the next millennium, there are those that say this gives too big an advantage to an attacker, but so what?
Defenders are supposed to defend…head the ball, kick the ball, tackle the player. Prancing around like you are line dancing is not in the description and I dare say many defenders will be delighted with some surety given the times an attacker is given onside when a blind parrot knows that they were a mile off. I am quote sure it never used to be this complicated, did it? They keep tinkering with the game, probably for the newer viewers, and none of it has improved the viewing enjoyment.
New tricks, tactics and advantages will be gained and sought both defensively and offensively and commentators will undoubtedly invent new words to describe things teams have been doing for over 100 years – low block and XG anyone? I think the older fan is being alienated by all this, but as the major leagues like the Premier League keep getting bigger and bigger – and one could argue more and more greedy – I do wonder where this will all end.
Or does a bit more excitement for the fans (the life blood of football) scare those who want to turn it into a stale version of table top football, that takes 18 hours per game, with your dad refereeing from a different room?
