The World Cup marked the start of a new era.
The tournament generally does when it comes to rules. The IFAB’s changes to the Laws of the Game begin on June 1, so every four years the World Cup debuts new rules. This year, we got expanded VAR, like the one that got Breel Embolo sent off for Switzerland against Argentina, red cards for players covering their mouths and several changes meant to reduce time wasting on injuries, substitutions and restarts.
This World Cup also brought us a new format, thanks to the expansion to 48 teams, which means we got changes to both how the sport is played and how the biggest tournament on Earth works.
In that spirit, I came up with some other changes to the rules and World Cup format.
Some I think should absolutely be taken up, others are just food for thought. The sport, in general, should be more open to rule changes than they have been, even if it’s just trialing them in lower profile leagues, so here are some to consider:
Go to 8 groups of 6
The World Cup will expand to 64 teams sooner rather than later, which will be terrible for the sport’s calendar, the culture of the national teams, the humanity of the tournament and so much more, but while we’re at 48 teams, a switch to eight groups of six teams each could solve some problems.
Primarily, it would eliminate the advancement of third place teams that gets very clunky, makes scheduling difficult and opens the door to corruption as two teams conspire to draw.
With only eight groups, things get straightforward again and there’s no unfair calendar advantages. It also makes for more compelling group stage games, with the better teams put into the same groups more often and even some of the weaker teams sharing groups, giving them a better chance of picking up inspiring results.
The downside of this is you do risk some dead rubbers at the end of the group stage when teams have already clinched advancement or have no way of moving on.
That could be remedied to some degree by offering third and maybe even fourth place in each group a guaranteed place in a repechage in qualifying for the next World Cup, but that’s clunky and FIFA would certainly balk at a reduction in games from 104 in the current format to a mere 96 in this revised format.
An alternative format (using the 2026 field) would look like the above and see first place teams in each group get a bye to the round of 16, while second and third place teams play each other in a play-off round1. That gets us to 144 games, helps avoid the dead rubber issue and puts stakes into each of the highest finishing places in the groups. This might even help stave off expansion to 64 teams for a bit.
Move the penalty spot back
When the sport was created and the rules were being made, the thinking was penalty kicks would be a 50/50 proposition. That is obviously not the case, with penalties converted at 79% on average.
That difference is obviously gigantic and completely changes how the sport works. Often, handball penalties or even clumsy plays that aren’t remotely threatening the goal like when Lucas Digne kicked Lamine Yamal in the semifinals, feel spiritually wrong because those calls are very likely to result in a goal. If a penalty kick only gave teams a 50% chance of scoring, they wouldn’t feel nearly as unfair.
It’s generally not a good idea to incentivize teams to be more aggressive and ruthless defending in their own box. The threat of a penalty kick helps keep defenders from taking chances so it’s a more attacking, entertaining game and decreasing the severity of a spot kick would diminish that, but it would also free referees to be less precious about calling fouls in the box.
Moving the penalty spot back could help push the odds of conversion closer towards 50/50, making for a better sport and it has the added bonus of making spot kicks more dramatic.
Challenge system for VAR
VAR sucks. It slows the game down, breaks up the rhythm, takes away the immediate joy of a goal as fans wait to see if it will be upheld and it poisons the discourse in unique ways. It’s also not really made the sport “fair” or the refereeing better. In fact, it often makes it worse because the on-field referee and VAR are often calling the sport by two different rulebooks, functionally.
Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to get rid of VAR so let’s do the next best thing - limit it.
Instead of constantly stopping the game after every goal, every tackle that might not look great, potential handball in the box, player asking for a penalty, and now even dives after yellow cards, corner kicks or whatever the next 15 things they expand VAR to include, let’s take all those stoppages away.
Instead, teams would be given challenges to use each game. Maybe it’s one, maybe it’s two. If they think a goal was wrongly awarded, they can challenge it. If they think a player should have gotten a red card, challenge it. Penalty? Challenge it.
The decision can be made by the manager by telling the fourth official or maybe they get a button to press that alerts the referee via his watch or earpiece. Whatever the mechanism, they have to decide right away if they think a call is egregiously wrong, great they can fix it. If not, the game keeps moving.
We already have goal line technology for the clear black and white call. Offside technology is nearing a similar clarity, in both certainty and speed. Everything else, challenge it or let’s keep the game moving.
Design more balls that fly
Adidas gives us a new ball every World Cup. Most of the time, that ball is pedestrian and, frankly, forgettable, but every once in a while we get a Jabulani or, like this year, a Trionda. A ball that flies and makes life hell on goalkeepers.
It rules and the sport should lean into it.
Nobody is asking to completely bastardize the sport with balls that resemble a wiffleball, but it’s such a breath of fresh air when players can put a little more zip on the ball, it takes on some top spin to stay beneath the crossbar and, especially, the best ball strikers in the world get particularly valuable.
One of this tournament’s highlights has been the stars showing out and the Trionda certainly played a role in that. Watching everyone see the value of taking shots from distance and being rewarded has been a huge plus.
The equipment doesn’t need to remain static. The ball doesn’t need to mimic the balls of a century ago. Every tournament and league is getting new balls all the time anyway. Why not design them so they reward and incentivize the most skillful players to fire away?
Tweak the offside rule
As is, a player is offside if they are beyond the ball and two opposing players. Normally, that means the goalkeeper and one defender, but every once in a while we get the freak offside call because the goalkeeper has gone on an adventure and the one defender between the attacker and the goal is no longer sufficient. That happened to Iran and kept them out of the knockout stages.
There’s little reason for the rule to continue as is and allow those freak offside calls to remain. Change the rule so offside is when a player is beyond the ball and one opposing player, goalkeeper excluded. Where the goalkeeper is shouldn’t affect whether a player is offside, so stop letting it.
Second yellow cards aren’t automatic suspensions
Every red card carries a one-match suspension, with the potential for additional bans if deemed necessary. That probably shouldn’t be the case.
If a player is reckless and endangers a player with a dangerous tackle, earning a sending off, it makes total sense to suspend him for the next game. There’s almost never a straight red card that you couldn’t justify a suspension for.
That’s not always the case with sending offs for second yellow cards, though. That can come because of simple foul accumulation, a tactical foul, getting caught on the wrong side of a player, diving, dissent or any number of other offenses. They’re not necessarily dangerous or even reckless.
When players are shown two yellow cards, their teams already have to finish the match with 10 men. That’s a pretty severe punishment and is probably more than sufficient. They don’t need to miss the next match too.
No attacking players can start in the six-yard box on corner kicks
The World Cup has not been marred by excessive set piece goals because referees have called attacking players from interfering with opposing goal keepers. The meat wall was wiped out of the tournament and we were all better off for it.
If that standard can be enforced everywhere, great. There’s no need for a rule change. However, if the Premier League, in particular, is a set piece fest again and other leagues continue to follow because it’s too difficult for referees to call contact correctly against well-drilled club teams there is a solution.
Don’t allow attacking players in the six-yard box on corner kicks until the ball is played in. Corner kicks can still be dangerous, with players rushing in and even some set plays to manufacture open headers, but that would prevent teams from putting players on top of the goalkeeper on the goal line and turning it into free for all.
I don’t favor this format because more games means hosts need more stadiums, probably more co-hosts and take on more harms, but if we’re going to do a phantom negotiation where FIFA requires a bunch of games, there it is.
I’ve seen so many of these rule change articles and I usually hate them.
I actually think I like all of these! I’m impressed (and subscribed).
Agree with all this, but wouldn’t eight groups of six teams and a 24 team knockout stage give us 144 games? Or would the group stage not be a full round robin?