What rules would you change/introduce to make the game more exciting?

Actual time such as basketball?
Change number of substitutions?
Off side ?
line-out?
Etc

Discuss.

more exciting? 13 vs 13 with no offside rule

but that wouldn't be football anymore.

wish those charity or preseason friendly match were done in crazy format.

Change the timing so that the clock only runs when the ball is in play. Maybe make it two thirty-minute halves? It might make the Libertadores watchable.

More substitutions if a game goes to extra time. I know it was recently changed to four in a lot of competitions, but I would love to see five or even six. I've seen a lot of games where players are just walking around in extra time because they're dead tired. It's boring and anticlimactic.

Get rid of the away goals rule. I don't know if it would make things more exciting, but it's a bullshit rule. I get the intent behind it, but it hasn't really done what it was meant to do.

Dont change any rules, just refine the execution of VAR to enforce the current rules.

Obviously more dangerous moments and more goals will make the game more interesting. How to make it? The most satisfying thing in football for me is to watch a player goes 1 on 1 with GK, with plenty of space and nobody is around. I would watch it all day long without getting bored

My wish list would be like this:
- In weak penalty calls dont give a penalty. give "1 on 1". One player must go face to face with GK and try to beat him. You have 10 seconds. This would be most orgasmic thing to watch for me
- Create a free kick rule that one player must go against 1 defender and a goalkeeper and try to score.
- Instead of 11 cut it to 9 players, more space more dangerous moments and more goals. Its way better to watch than boring parked buses. In this case teams will rely on skills rather than overcrowding in their own half and do nothing and get away with it
- Make 5 subs to play more players
- 3 cards to punish players, Yellow, Blue and Red

hand ball rule.  Just make all hand balls a foul... this intent thing is stupid.  Too much subjective bs.

Second, you have 24 seconds to get the ball to the opposite half of the pitch once you get the ball.

PKs every time there's a draw after 90 mins.  The PK winner gets an extra point.  Wins get you 4 points instead of 3 in parallel to the PK rule.  So in essence,
-  win gets 4 points
-  draw + pk winner gets 2 points
-  draw + pk loser gets 1 point

from 3 subs to 5 subs. Makes it more interesting tactically as you can really switch things around.

terrance511 wrote:more exciting? 13 vs 13 with no offside rule

but that wouldn't be football anymore.

wish those charity or preseason friendly match were done in crazy format.

Wat. No it's the other way around. More players = less space, discipline becomes more important, individual quality matters less. To make the game more exciting it should be 10 vs 10

Also no offside rule would ruin the game

Make PKs like free throws in basketball, the person who was fouled has to take the spot kick. In case of handball, the person who shot or passed the ball that hit the hand.

24 second shot clock

Yellow cards should be 10 minute ejections like they are at youth and non-division level here in Denmark.

rincon wrote:Dont change any rules, just refine the execution of VAR to enforce the current rules.

The correct opinion.

No subjectivity to handling? I'd start chopping off my players arms so that I didn't lose to some stupid bullshit like someone shooting the ball into my arm hanging by my side in a natural position

I'd be absolutely fine with more subs, like I made a thread about it not too long ago, I don't quite understand why it should be limited to three.

Some pretty wild ideas in here which I don't find very realistic... One I could see as realistic is removing that, in my opinion, stupid rule of 'dangerous play' when someone tries to kick an airball while another player tries to head it. If you are able to kick the ball, you should have the right to do that in all situations. If someone decides to head it instead, it should be on their own responsibility.

football is one of the simplest sports, pretty straightforward. any novice can watch a football match for the first time and understand what's going on. its not like nfl nba baseball or other sports where you may ask questions as a novice throughout the game. the only question that may arise in football for a novice is about offsides

for this reason, its absolutely hard for something to be introduces with regards to rules to make it more exciting. the excitement comes from the national associations developing their leagues and footballing bodies developing their tournaments....and money as well, very important.

extra substitutions would just serve as a new tool for coaches to waste time during games. the 4th sub will be left for like the 90th minute when the official has signified how may minutes of added time there would be.

it probably doesn't add for more excitement but i absolutely love the idea by @m99 - the person who was fouled should take the penalty

I don't think I would change anything reaaally, however it would be interesting to watch these elite players play 9v9 or 8v8 on a smaller pitch.

I would expect a fast pace match with more goals.

One 10 minute power play for each team that can be started at any time from the 5th - 75th minute.

Power play involves:
Addition of 1 extra player (managers choice)
reduction of 1 player from the opposing team (opposing managers choice)
15 seconds between the ball leaving the pitch and play resuming or the ball is given to the other team

Dig up holes randomly across the field, cover them with trapdoors and fake grass, and let a computer open them randomly during game.

Football is still quite exciting though. What needs to happen is better enforcement of certain rules and within that same thought, a clearer fking rule for handball.

I do like the guy who won the PK should take it rule. Other than that, it's fine as is.

Allow follow through or trailing legs after getting the ball in tackling. Makes the game 100 times more intense and interesting. Encourages tackling as well rather than standing off and ball watching nowadays. Fuck that coward mentality. Get stuck in like the old days lads.

I'd introduce actual playing time
But under some indications

To be fair I am not even a great fan of actual time introduction in the football, because it means to upset this sport .
Of course you can't continue on matches long for 90 minutes + actual time, you should make something as 30 + 30 , and tbh I'd not renounce to two half times long 45'.
Anyway the last 10-15 minutes have became pure teather in the football, and I am so tired to watch things as that PSV Eindhoven players who feigns to be dead because he wants to prevent to continue the match to Inter.
Therefore, I 'd introduce actual time for last 10-15 minutes.

Yes, anyone could argue   even now the referee in his watch inserts the actual time (but anyway in his watch, no transparency) and he says it is going to  recover every waste of time, but everyone knows it is a fictitious extratime.

Moreover, if the unsportsman player is aware about the existence of the actual time in last minutes,  he will have to adapt and will not carry out  some unsportsmanlike practices on the pitch , because they are very useless. Certified uselessness.

So I'd introduce actual time for last 10-15 minutes of every match.

For me the easiest change that I think would make the biggest impact is to change the point system in leagues/groups so a tie counts as a loss (0 points) for both teams. Would make games 1000x more exciting because now there’s no incentive to park the bus for a draw. 0-0s would almost completely disappear and the last 5-10 mins of tied games would become exhilarating with both teams going all out for it.

Over the past 10 months the 'Future Rules Football League', an experimental league trying out alternative rules, has been played in the Netherlands.

The Dutch FA collaborated with high-level amateur U23 sides and played out a full season with the new rules.

The results are in.

— Nils Mackay (@NilsMackay) June 21, 2019

Three new rules were used:

Self-pass from any set piece (corner/free kick/goal kick etc)
Kick-in/self-pass in stead of a throw-in
Time penalties in stead of yellow/red cards


The self-pass.

The biggest influence this had on the game was the ball was in play more often. The actual playing time increased from ~60 to ~65 minutes per game.

Surprisingly it did not lead to a significant increase in fast attacks.

Kick-in instead of throw-in.

This was reported by most participants as a more intuitive solution than a throw-in. It also led to an advantage for the attacking side, as it was easier to retain the ball.


Time penalties (5/10 minutes) in stead of yellow/red cards.

Fewer cards were given by quite a margin. The question is whether this was due to players being more careful, or referees thinking the punishment was more severe and thus it wasn't warranted as frequently.


All-in-all opinions of participants, referees and Dutch FA were very positive. IFAB attended the final presentation but seemed to be conservative when it came to giving an opinion. Future experiments will probably be considered.




Self pass would give attacking too big of advantage and make life hard for defenders (also linesman)
Dont like it

No need to add technical rules and i prefer continuous time. Football should remain simple.

Reacting on the other members suggestions...
Hand ball in the box = penalty
Fouled player takes the PK = makes sense
More substitutions = i think 3 is the perfect amount, i'd give the coach a emergency sub at disposal strictly for injuries, yet i see a risk that players would fake it, so i'd let it at 3

If i can add a suggestion...
Yellow card: stays the same
Orange card: given after 2nd yellow card, sent off for 20 minutes
Red card: given after a unsportsmanship foul, sent off until the end of the match

rincon wrote:Dont change any rules, just refine the execution of VAR to enforce the current rules.

This.

May be additional substitutions for Extra-Time and official Drinks-Breaks when games are played in particularly hot (Like AFCON in July) conditions.

I do hate throw ins. Especially as everyone does foul throws anyway. The Sunday league is reffed more stringent on foul throws than professional football.

Salary Cap.

Football is shite now because it's a basically who has money competition.

The same teams win the league every year and usually the CL is the same ( this year won't happen very often)

No one will agree to it because they want to keep the status quo and shut everyone else out but it's what the sport desperately needs.