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Luis Suarez’s blatant handball from the 2010 World Cup continues to be a subject of debate amongst soccer’s lawmakers. Suarez committed the offense in the closing stages of a quarter-final match against Ghana, giving Uruguay the slightest hopes of staving off elimination.
Asamoah Gyan sent the resulting penalty over the bar for Ghana, and Uruguay went through to the semis after a shoot-out victory. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is now looking into ways to prevent that situation from ever occurring again.
As part of a current review of the laws of the game, IFAB is investigating the possibility of awarding ‘penalty goals’ rather than penalty kicks should such an obvious denial of a goal occur. The 'penalty goal' would automatically be given, negating any chance of a goalkeeper saving a penalty kick.
The IFAB have already made changes to the laws of the game which will come into play at Euro 2016. A significant change was made with regards to ‘triple punishment’ for goalkeepers and defenders — when a goalkeeper or defender receives a red card, penalty and a ban for denying a goalscoring opportunity. Players will now be cautioned with a yellow card instead of a red in certain circumstances.
Other less massive, but still interesting, rule changes include the stipulation that a kick-off no longer needs to go forwards, but can now be passed backwards too. Everything is different now.
The master of the dark arts, Luis Suarez. Photo: @sport | Twitter
Moving forward, the biggest topic concerning the rules of the modern game is the implementation of video technology. The IFAB is currently determining what kinds of incidents will be refereed with the use of video assistance, as well as the logistics and specifics concerning the technologies use.
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