Wenger's 'daylight' offside trial unlikely to be extended

Published27 October 2026

Arsene Wenger's "daylight" offside trial is unlikely to be extended after receiving a lack of support at the International Football Association Board's (Ifab) assessment panels on Tuesday.

The trial, which sees a player ruled to be onside if any part of the body is level with the second-last opponent, has been operating in the Canadian Premier League (CPL) throughout the year.

The regular CPL season finished on Sunday, with mixed results.

The Ifab's football and technical panels, made up of former players, coaches and referees, were told that the trial had led to a 54% reduction in offside decisions and 13 additional goals across the 112 matches.

But it also resulted in the defensive line retreating three metres across the course of the season.

The CPL also trialled Football Video Support - a version of VAR which allows coaches to challenge decisions twice a game.

This helped limit the impact of the trial, which would not be possible in most leagues.

The biggest impact appeared to be on set-pieces, with defences having to compensate for the advantage of the "daylight" offside.

There was support for a change to the coin toss before a penalty shootout.

At present there is a toss to decide which end a penalty is taken from, and then a captain makes a call for choice of first spot-kick.

It means the same team can get the advantage of both decisions on a shootout.

The planned change would see the captain who wins the toss the choice of ends or first kick, with the opposition skipper automatically getting to decide the other.

There was little support for extending the five-second countdown for throw-ins and goal-kicks to other situations such as free-kicks and corners.

The goalkeeper injury trial currently being using in English football was viewed as a success so far.

This sees an outfield player leave the field of play if a goalkeeper goes down for treatment, to try to end the tactical timeout which had become prevalent.

It has only been enforced twice in 80 Premier League games so far.

One suggestion was a player who claims a head injury in the penalty area and gets up quickly after the referee stops play should not have up stay off the field for one minute.

The technical panels meetings on Tuesday were the first step to potential law changes for the 2027-28 season.

Footballs lawmakers are eager not to make too many changes after so many modifications in the summer ahead of the World Cup.

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