Following their meeting in March, IFAB have announced the law changes that will come into effect on 1st July 2024.
1.Laws of the Game 2024/25
The members approved several changes and clarifications for the Laws of the Game 2024/25,
which can be found in the above-mentioned enclosure.
Main Law changes:
•Law 12 – Fouls and Misconduct
The AGM agreed that for non-deliberate handball offences in the penalty area, the same philosophy should apply as for offences (fouls) which are an attempt to play the ball or a challenge for the ball.
Consequently, for penalties awarded for a non-deliberate handball offence, DOGSO offences will now result in a yellow card and SPA offences will result in no card. There is no change to the
punishment for deliberate handball offences, which will continue to be sanctioned with a red card when a penalty is awarded, as they are similar to holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the
ball, etc.
•Law 14 – The Penalty Kick
It was decided that encroachment by players will be penalised only if it has an impact, which is the same philosophy applied to goalkeeper encroachment. It was also decided that part of the ball must
touch or overhang the centre of the penalty mark.
Other changes and clarifications:
•Law 3 – The Players & Law 4 – The Players’ Equipment
The meeting agreed that teams must have a captain who wears an identifying armband. The captain must wear the armband issued or authorised by the relevant competition organiser or a
simple armband.
It was also agreed that the size and protection provided by the shinguards are each player’s own responsibility. The meeting agreed that players should be aware of the potential dangers resulting from wearing very small/thin shinguards.
2. Additional permanent concussion substitutions
The members received an update on the trials with additional permanent concussion substitutions and agreed that these should now be included under Law 3 – The Players as a fixed option for competitions, with details of the protocol to be included under ‘Notes and modifications’. Whereas
the trials involved two protocols, the AGM decided that one protocol in which each team may use one additional permanent concussion substitute in a game and the other team gets an additional substitute (and substitution opportunity) will now be used. The protocol is attached to this circular.
It was also agreed that trials with temporary concussion substitutions would not be undertaken at this stage but would remain under consideration.
3. Announcement of VAR-related decisions
Members were informed of the decision taken at the Annual Business Meeting (ABM) in November 2023 (https://www.theifab.com/news/abm-2023) to extend the ongoing trials in which the referee publicly announces and explains the final decision after a video assistant referee (VAR) ‘review’ or lengthy VAR ‘check’ to domestic competitions.
The circular describing all of the changes is shown below: