Premier League new rules for 2023/24 season: Injury-time and offside changes introduced this year – Sporting News
The start of the 2023/24 Premier League season brought huge excitement as the cycle of English top-flight domestic football returned in August.
The summer months were packed with action, including the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, busy preseason schedules, and buzz of the transfer rumour mill ahead of the new campaign.
However, alongside some of the more thrilling aspects of a new season, there were also key updates over rule changes and updates from the Premier League.
The Sporting News takes a look at the rule tweaks from the Premier League including some potentially controversial changes to guidelines on timewasting, red cards, VAR and offside.
MORE: Premier League table updated 2023/24
The Premier League has adapted certain rules going into the 2023/24 season, following consultations with clubs, referees and data experts, with some eye-catching new additions.
The subject of timekeeping, or time wasting, has come into sharp focus again this summer, as part of FIFA’s officiating at the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
For 2023/24, the Premier League will align itself with the International Football Association Board (IFAB) rules on timekeeping during in-game action.
This means timers in stadiums will be left running until the completion of each half, including additional time in both the first and second half, with match officials then adding up the exact amount of time lost within specific match incidents.
Previously, nominal periods were defined for specific incidents, with the overall time added together to give the amount of additional time added at the end of each half of action.
This is likely to mean more time added to the end of each of the two 45-minute periods of gameplay, particularly in the second period, with listed match incidents including:
This refers specifically to incidents of players committing a foul inside their own penalty area which denies an opposition player a clear goal-scoring opportunity which leads to a penalty being awarded.
The interpretation of the law will be altered with the offending player now in line to be shown a yellow card whether or not the foul was as part of an attempt to play the ball or merely ‘challenge’ for it.
This allows referees greater power to use their discretion to use yellow cards over red with the latter reserved for instances of deliberate pushing, pulling and foul play.
Offside remains a hugely controversial subject in Premier League football with the addition of VAR proving both beneficial and impractical at times.
Again the Premier League have worked to bring themselves alongside FIFA and the IFAB in terms of the latest offside update, which refers primarily to defenders.
In particular, it relates to ‘deliberate play’ by a defender when an attacking player is called up for offside.
If a defender is viewed by the match officials to be in control of the ball, with the possibility to pass to a teammate, gain possession of the ball, or clear the ball (by heading or kicking), an opposition player in an offside position would not be penalised for offside.
An inaccurate move by a defender does not change this as it is still classified as a ‘deliberate’ attempt to play the ball.
Fubo Canada
UK: Matches are carried across Sky Sports and TNT Sports streaming and TV platforms, with select matches on Amazon Prime.
USA: Select matches are televised on USA Network (English) and Telemundo or Universo (Spanish), and all three channels can be streamed on Fubo. The rest of the matches are streamed on NBC platform Peacock for subscribers.
Canada: Every Premier League game this season is live streamed exclusively via Fubo in Canada.
Australia: Fans in Australia can stream every match live and on demand on Optus Sport.
India: Star Sports network has the rights to show Premier League matches in India. As well as an English broadcast on Star Sports Select, select matches will be available via regional feeds on Star Sports 3 (in Bengali, English, Kannada, Malayalam), Star Sports 1 (Bangla) and Star Sports 1 (Tamil).
Feargal is a content producer for The Sporting News.
