Thought I'd go through some of the proposals:-
Passing to yourself at a free-kick, corner and goal-kick – I’ve no real objections to this for free kicks and corners. It could speed up play and lead to some interesting and exciting developments in attacking areas. Imposing it for goal kicks would allow keepers to time waste endlessly, interspersed with occasionally hilarious goals when it all went wrong.
A stadium clock which stops and starts along with the referee's watch – Pointless bollocks which will focus fans’ attention on the ref, his watch and the clock, not the game.
Allowing the goal-kick to be taken even if the ball is moving OR
a goal-kick being taken on the same side that the ball went out on – I’d be in favour of scrapping goal kicks entirely, they’re slow and add nothing to the game. I’d put the ball in the keeper’s hands if the shot went wide BUT he’d only be allowed to throw it out. When the ball hadn’t been out he could kick it from his hands or the floor if he wanted.
A "clearer and more consistent definition" of handball – impossible! refs could already interpret it uniformly if they wanted and were capable of doing so.
A player who scores a goal or stops a goal with his hands gets a red card – we don’t need more red cards, they ruin the game, get your untalented hands off a beautiful game ref!
A keeper who handles a backpass or throw-in from a team-mate concedes a penalty – just a nonsense five-side style rule that won’t excite anyone.
The referee can award a goal if a player stops a goal being scored by handling on or close to the goal-line – If referees want to score a goal they should play the game not ref’ it. Obviously we think penalties are exciting or else why would there be penalty shoot-outs? Awarding a penalty goal would be just an anti-climax.
Referees can only blow for half-time or full-time when the ball goes out of play – so with the giant stadium clock synchronized with the ref’s watch for every player to see the moment full or half time ticks round the leading side scrambles to hoof the ball into the stands. Hmmmmm that should up the skill-level nicely!
A penalty kick is either scored or missed/saved and players cannot follow up to score to stop encroachment into the penalty area – One of the major skills of a keeper is to know where he is deflecting or blocking a ball when he can’t catch it. This will reduce the keeper at a penalty to a hard-handed blocker.
Conclusion:
These people know nothing about goalkeeping, little about football skills and have little insight into the fans’ point of view. And they clearly haven’t even considered those people who play the game for fun all over the country every weekend.
In general I’m in favour of experimenting with rule-changes just as they are trying with the VAR at the meaningless Confederations Cup. They’re finding problems, well that’s a positive. I think if you asked most people involved with football what do you want to see, more evident refereeing or less, we’d almost all plump for less. And why? Because the best games we can remember we never noticed the ref’ …… and under these proposals we’d never stop hearing from him or her.
Personally the rule change I’d like to experiment with is no more than three defenders being allowed in “a wall”. I think you’d very quickly see a line of attackers adding a crumbling wall on the end of it and much less time wasted lining up the three player wall. AND MORE GOALS AND MORE THRILLING SAVES!
Passing to yourself at a free-kick, corner and goal-kick – I’ve no real objections to this for free kicks and corners. It could speed up play and lead to some interesting and exciting developments in attacking areas. Imposing it for goal kicks would allow keepers to time waste endlessly, interspersed with occasionally hilarious goals when it all went wrong.
A stadium clock which stops and starts along with the referee's watch – Pointless bollocks which will focus fans’ attention on the ref, his watch and the clock, not the game.
Allowing the goal-kick to be taken even if the ball is moving OR
a goal-kick being taken on the same side that the ball went out on – I’d be in favour of scrapping goal kicks entirely, they’re slow and add nothing to the game. I’d put the ball in the keeper’s hands if the shot went wide BUT he’d only be allowed to throw it out. When the ball hadn’t been out he could kick it from his hands or the floor if he wanted.
A "clearer and more consistent definition" of handball – impossible! refs could already interpret it uniformly if they wanted and were capable of doing so.
A player who scores a goal or stops a goal with his hands gets a red card – we don’t need more red cards, they ruin the game, get your untalented hands off a beautiful game ref!
A keeper who handles a backpass or throw-in from a team-mate concedes a penalty – just a nonsense five-side style rule that won’t excite anyone.
The referee can award a goal if a player stops a goal being scored by handling on or close to the goal-line – If referees want to score a goal they should play the game not ref’ it. Obviously we think penalties are exciting or else why would there be penalty shoot-outs? Awarding a penalty goal would be just an anti-climax.
Referees can only blow for half-time or full-time when the ball goes out of play – so with the giant stadium clock synchronized with the ref’s watch for every player to see the moment full or half time ticks round the leading side scrambles to hoof the ball into the stands. Hmmmmm that should up the skill-level nicely!
A penalty kick is either scored or missed/saved and players cannot follow up to score to stop encroachment into the penalty area – One of the major skills of a keeper is to know where he is deflecting or blocking a ball when he can’t catch it. This will reduce the keeper at a penalty to a hard-handed blocker.
Conclusion:
These people know nothing about goalkeeping, little about football skills and have little insight into the fans’ point of view. And they clearly haven’t even considered those people who play the game for fun all over the country every weekend.
In general I’m in favour of experimenting with rule-changes just as they are trying with the VAR at the meaningless Confederations Cup. They’re finding problems, well that’s a positive. I think if you asked most people involved with football what do you want to see, more evident refereeing or less, we’d almost all plump for less. And why? Because the best games we can remember we never noticed the ref’ …… and under these proposals we’d never stop hearing from him or her.
Personally the rule change I’d like to experiment with is no more than three defenders being allowed in “a wall”. I think you’d very quickly see a line of attackers adding a crumbling wall on the end of it and much less time wasted lining up the three player wall. AND MORE GOALS AND MORE THRILLING SAVES!