Dutch football is considering scrapping the offside rule in grassroots football to deal with an increase in violent incidents – but the ban would only apply to amateur matches.
As with grassroots football in England, many grassroots games in the Netherlands use assistant referees who are not professionally trained and are usually a parent associated with one of the teams involved.
It comes after the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) revealed that 1,864 matches were stopped because of violent incidents, in part due to disputed offside calls. The Dutch Football Association (KNVB) claims that the move could counteract increased violence towards referees. Jan Dirk van der Zee, director of the KNVB, admitted significant changes are necessary to combat the problem “We have a problem, and we want to eradicate it. I do not rule out that we will one day stop using assistant referees.”
In an unexpected development that has sparked conversations across the football world, the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) is reportedly considering scrapping the offside rule in grassroots football. While this might seem like an audacious and radical proposal, the reasoning behind the move aims to address several challenges facing youth football in the Netherlands,
The Dutch FA’s proposal to scrap the offside rule in grassroots football is an interesting and controversial one. Along with removing the offside rule at the level, Van Der Zee also claimed that assistant referees may not be used in the future, although no firm commitments or timelines have been given.
What do you think?
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Removing offsides won’t do a thing, except taking 2 volunteers out of the firing line, instead the vitriol of those angry little men (who probably do not understand the offside rule anyway) will have only one target…the referee , making this much worse for the man in black and more officials leaving the game