It’s radical, we’ll give him that.
Dutch footballing legend Marco van Basten is calling for an overhaul of the sport’s rules as he believes the modern game has become too defence-oriented.
The Euro 1988 winner claims that the attacking flair that made him fall in love with the game is being sucked away by teams camping out on their 18-yard line.
“There is so much timewasting in football. We need new rules to do something against it. Give players a red card if they are wasting time following a substitution. The pace of the game should remain high,” van Basten told Algemeen Dagblad.
“Football should be tense, fair and attractive. I think it’s a major challenge to bear that in mind when it comes to deciding what rules we need.
“Just look at how football has developed. Modern football is like handball. You see 11 players defending on the edge of their own area.
“We might as well get rid of the offside rule. The rule is quite complicated and always leads to a lot of discussion. The players will get used to it quite quickly.”
Van Basten, who won the Ballon d’Or on three occasions, also believes that technology should be embraced even more so with the introduction of a video referee sooner rather than later.
“Football has changed just like life in general has changed,” he added. “Football was just a bit of fun 50 years ago, but it is big business now. A lot of money is involved.
“I also hope the video referee will be introduced before the 2018 World Cup. The video ref should focus on the key things, situations ahead of goals, penalties and red cards. There will always be small mistakes, but there is a lot of room for improvement.”
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