Football Daily - Reinventing Football - what to do with handball, penalties and VAR?

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

Kelly Cates is joined by Nedum Onuoha, Rory Smith and comedian Kae Kurd to discuss the changes they would make if they were designing football from scratch.How would they tweak the rules? What punishments would they introduce? How long should a game last? How many players per team? How many points for a win? Would they keep VAR?

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Learn how geospatial intelligence and AI are transforming supply chain resilience. Available now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to the Football Daily podcast with Kelly Kate. Hello and welcome to the Football Daily podcast. This week, across BBC Sport, we've been discussing what football would be like if we started from scratch. The thing I would change in football is... Five minutes simbing or simulation. Maybe scrapping offside might be the answer.

I would do a leg critic. I think that would keep the speed of the game up. If they do it in the NFL, why not? For me, it would be to change the handball. If we were starting it all from scratch. Goals outside the box count double. A time limit on VAR decisions. about the chaos. I quite like the naughty chair. Every corner, the goalie has to go up and it's just

a bit of carnage. People are desperate to change football. Just build a little picket fence around the goalkeeper. I mean, dear me. You are listening to Five Live Sports reinventing football. What laws would you change? What annoys you? What needs to be fixed? Our panel who are going to be helping us along this evening suggesting some ideas, football correspondent for The Observer, Rory Smith, former Manchester City and QPR defender Nadia manure and comedian and part of the Wayne Rooney show, Kay Curd. The format of this evening, we're going to hear some suggestions from various different sources. Then we're going to discuss them and then we'll maybe talk about alternatives if they don't

go down terribly well. All ideas are welcome. Some more welcome than others. So let's start off with some of your ideas. Phil and Salisbury got in touch to encourage teams to be more attack. three points for a win, one point for a draw, one point for each goal scored. No, that's going to cause all sorts of mayhem. That's going to be crazy.

It's getting into like bonus try kind of territory there and it starts to get incredibly complicated. Imagine that on the last day of the season though. I think you can't have a bonus point for every goal store. That's insane. But you could. I mean, the bonus try thing in rugby isn't far be it from me to say that football should ever learn anything from rugby union.

from any other sport ever. No, other sports, especially rugby lead, perfectly acceptable, just rugby union, Kelly. The bonus tri-thin isn't, that's not a ridiculous idea. You just can't have it for every single goal. Two for an away draw, one for a home draw, and then you could have an extra point for every 10 goals you score.

This is starting to sound very American, and I'm not with it. People love maths. People love maths in sport. I had a suggestion which wasn't too similar to this. I don't know if this has been set out there as a little trap to get me, to get me riled here. Does anyone know what my suggestion was?

You tell us, Nadim. So what I, my suggestion was, I'm surprised it wasn't one of the ones that led the whole show, given how important I am to the BBC. But what it was, was to give a bonus point for every two goals that you score.

So as opposed to one for every single goal. My idea was for the two goals scored, putting you in a position to where, as we see a lot within football, we can see a side that's clearly won a game. You can say the ties all over. and it sort of ends up in this sort of like 10, 15 minutes where the teams are basically seeing the game out.

But I think if you could be a losing side, they can still gain a point from a match if you do manage to score two goals, I think if anything, encourages more attacking football and not to the point to where it's crazy, but to the point where you know the value of that singular point in the game which you've still lost,

and that will come by trying to commit a bit more as opposed to just go through the process and say, well, this game's done. You know, we'll go home and we'll figure, this out for the next time. Could you not have the same effect by giving a bonus point for every team that scores five goals? Because that would encourage them to keep attacking, which might open them.

No, no, no. Well, this is the thing, Rory. Not every team has the capacity to score five goals, but I think most teams have the capacity to score two. When you look at teams who are quite evenly matched, we do tend to get some really tight games where it's more like a cup final to where teams are more scared of losing as opposed to more on the front foot to try and win. So if you are in a position to where you are headed, say you're on the same points as

the side and you're winning 1-0. the difference between that 1-0 and a 2-0 could be quite significant as opposed to just accepting 1-0 is a good score line in itself and you just move on with it. I just started thinking of what we'd be doing on the last day of season

and that table would look crazy. I know, but you'd love it now. You'd love it, Kay. And how much it would change? I think, for what, I think not long time, but for one season of chaos, it would be,

do you know what they should have done? They should have done this in the 2020-21 season when it was lockdown, when it was the lockdown season, and the full one, that's what they should have done. They should have done it then

because everything was chaotic then anyway. The feeling, like you're thinking about the last day and I see a sense of excitement with that, obviously, I'm biased because it's my opinion. It was my suggestion. But I think it reminds me in some ways of when we'd be watching, say, European competition and it's like the away goals rule and stuff.

And as you see the clock ticking down, you're trying to figure something out in your mind, what happens if this happens? And if that happens, what do we do next? I think there are lots of people that I know anyway, maybe it's very much anecdotal, who enjoyed that thrilling nature of football as opposed to it being in a position

to where the game is done, let's all just go home because it would give you a reason to never leave it. You're right, but I feel like the top teams are just going to use certain matches to just stat pad the whole league. But who does it affect, though? That's the question.

Because, for example, Kay, if they were winning a game like 6-0, 7-0 or whatever, the team that they're playing against can still get something from the game as opposed to at this moment in time where they cannot. I understand that. but they're not going to be able to.

Like, when you look at, like, let's just take Man City, for example, because you're really fond of them. Some games, some games, where they score five goals against the team, and the other team just don't look like they're going to get a look in. And sometimes... When was this? Well, I mean, a couple of seasons ago, you know, a few seasons. So, there we go.

There we go. And to add to that point, if the teams up at the top are trying to go for it in terms of trying to score as many goals as possible, let me input a moment from Premier League history. and it was Crystal Palace versus Liverpool. Liverpool needed to score a few more goals to boost their goal difference to win the league title. And in doing so, it went from being 3-0 to 3-3.

I think Rory remembers that one quite well. I do. Maybe that's an example of being two attacking. That proves my point, the way you could have the same effect without kind of rendering the table completely chaotic, just lots of teams score two goals. So it looked like F1,

where I think Lando Norris can get 34 points in a weekend, which makes no sense to anybody. You give the bonus point for score in five because what that does is it means the bigger team every rule changing football benefits the bigger teams that's just the rule of football if the bidder team keeps chasing goals at three or four rather than saying actually we've got two or three that's fine

they keep chasing them they open up which means that the lesser team the underdog has chance to score. It's got more chance to score. That makes the games more open. The football change that Chris in Headingley would be about participation in the league cup So he says it doesn't really have an identity

compared to the FA Cup so instead he would make it and I don't mind this a British Isles Cup for example the draw would be Celtic against Nottingham Forest or it'd be Shamrock Rovers against Haverford West or it would be Balimina against Aberdeen

I don't hate that I don't hate that but I also don't like the fact that he said the League Cup doesn't have personality it's the only trophy with three handles that's enough personality three handles and generally the winning captain only has two.

So what's the, I don't mind this, a British Isles Cup. I'm not against a British Al's Cup. If you look at the Leeds Cup, similar name in North America, which is MLS against L's leader at MX, that works really well.

I think that is a genuinely quite good idea. Thank you, Chris. Simon says scrap penalties for handballs in the box unless it's denying a goal scoring opportunity. Don't mind it. Yeah. What, can we have a free kick in the area? Is it in India free kick,

which you've seen before, okay? Don't act brand new. Come on. You're better than that. No, I'm saying which you were seen before. That's what I said. Handball should be changed

in a million different ways. Listen, we've got more handball things coming, I think. If we get to them. Chris said, different Chris, would like the offside law change

so you can only be offside beyond the 18 yard line and he says this was spread out play. I don't like it because essentially what you're asking for there is a game that's made up of low blocks. That's it.

everyone just passed in the edge of the box. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing because the people that would have the space are the people who are less likely to score because they're so far away from the goal itself. So I think it just encourages defenders to just drop deeper and just stand there and just, as I say, just form that block.

Yeah, the argument with offside is you have to remember the law of unintended consequences. So when they changed the backpass in 1992, which is the single most significant event in modern football, they didn't realize it would invent pressing. They didn't realize what would happen when you force goalkeepers not to pick it up. If you move offside further back,

you get strikers standing closer to goal, which means teams defend much further back, which makes the game less entertaining. Donald said self-passing, free kicks and throw-ins. Throw-in, pick-out themselves, which quickens up the game. It means that anyone committing a foul doesn't have time to argue with the referee.

I'm sure people can make time to argue with the referee. Stephen's really getting in. to the idea. This is the most enthusiastic response we've had to this. Let's face it, every tweak since the backpass law has been a nightmare, leave the game alone. Something Barney from Buckinghamshire asks, can something be done about corners? Chaos every time there's a corner. What about four players from each team in the area? The rest of the teams have to be outside the box. He said something must be done soon. It feels like, it feels a little bit like they're moving towards that with the kind of emphasis on fouls in the box at the moment. It feels

feels as though this is something that, if not talked about seriously, then at least mooted. The only reason I don't like that idea is because the game's become a lot more positional. And I like when there's a lot more chaos. I think chaos is good. Chaos is good for the game. Whereas I think when it becomes all rigid and structured, I think that's when it tends to get a little robotic and isn't as entertaining. Like, that's what I love. Like, we don't, we don't play Tiki-Taka as an age.

We lump it to the big man and just cause some havoc. That's what it is. You're too young to be talking about 80s football. Jonathan Wilson the other day. I loved it. When you watch football in the 90s, it was a lot more. 4-4-2. I'm a big advocate for 4-4-2.

Big man, little man, just go for it. Just wait, and it will come around. The thing that makes football better is if you just make everybody slightly worse, they are now all too good at football. That's the problem. If you make the players a bit worse, it'll be much more entertaining. We're talking about how to improve football

if we were starting from scratch. What would we do and what would we change about how it is now? Theo Walcott has an idea to encourage last-minute screamers. Goals outside the box count double. However, in the last 10 minutes, so it's kind of a final phase system. So it comes into play and commentates and getting involved to say it's final phase and it's the last 10 minutes, goals to count for double.

And the reason why, as well, it will allow teams to be able to take those risks if they want to sit back and defend a low block or that the guys want to attack as well, counter-attack. It's a nice balance. It might see the game open up a bit. Goals from outside the box have been decreasing

in recent years as a percentage of all goals. Is this the way to bring them back? Yes, go for it. The only evidence I have for that is in the NBA, once they realised that scoring three-pointers was more efficient, everybody just started scoring from outside the D. And in football, if you did implement a rule like that, I think more people would start trying to score screamers

and we'd get a lot more of it. Except that. You see it from the way that players defend corners and that they very rarely have a defensive player now on the edge of the D because they think, you know, percentage-wise, if somebody gets a shot from there, it's probably not going to be a goal unless it's absolutely perfect.

So coaches are looking at this and thinking, we don't really fancy the opposition's chances of scoring from long range. So would it just, instead of thinking there's going to be a lot more long range goals, is there's going to be a lot more kind of, you know, balls flying everywhere from distance? Listen, I love all these suggestions,

but I've got to say, there's another side to this. And I know that sound when somebody shoots from 25 yards down and he goes into Rose Ed. I have heard it many a time, obviously not from shots that I've taken, but I've heard it many time

from other people attempting those shots. And it's funny as well, for Theo saying that, Like, I feel like I've heard that on Baller League before. I'm sure that's the thing. I'm sure that's a game change. Yeah. Well, listen, Baller League is a fertile ground for new ideas.

There might be a few of them. Got no issues with it whatsoever. But I think it would be interesting if they did decide to do that. And also, I know there's some people listening probably who believe that, you know, is Guardiola and others that have ruined, you know, these long shots and stuff. But I will introduce one Sam Halladice and remember playing against his ball on sides. And they were not encouraged to be shooting from outside the box because he saw. saw it and said there's more value in winning

the second ball and getting it back in the box because that's how you get more percentage of goals. Lots of people looking for ideas to encourage more attacking football, which seems weird because I think this season and last season have been two of the highest scoring, certainly pro rata for this season, but

last season won the highest scoring Premier League seasons ever. So we're trying to get more goals, more attacking football. No points for nil-nil draws. I don't know how you do that because then what's the punishment for losing. But, I mean, Ned,

and I shouldn't have to make this point for you. Defending is part of football. Thank you. Yes, Rory. We shouldn't put... It's not all about attacking football. No, and there's genuine beauty in defence. Someone suggests to Georgio Kierlini

that you don't get a point for a nil-0 draw. He'd be furious with you. You wouldn't say it to his face. But the other thing is, do you have Italian blood, Rory? This is Italian by nature rather than by blood. The beauty of football is that there's not many dolls. Your average basketball game will finish,

what, 110, 1006, something like that? Yes. Yeah, it's getting real high now. Bastards happen every 30 seconds, every 40 seconds, especially now that the kind of Steph Curry Warriors Revolution means that everyone's shooting threes and everyone can do it pretty much every time. The reason you get that explosion,

that amazing feeling after a goal, is because sometimes there's only one goal in a game. That's what makes football really special. It's part of its magic. We're probably in the sweet spot now where there's lots and lots of goals, but there's not too many. As soon as there's too many, they're not as much fun.

Because the jeopardy decreases. If there were no points for nil-nil draws, just for fun, do you want it to hear? And in case people are listening and thinking, I don't know where I stand. Everybody will know where they stand on every point here. But if they're deciding, if they're wavering, if there were no points for nil-nil-nil draws, in 97-98, Arsenal wouldn't win the title and Everton would go down. In 2007-2008, there'd be no great escape for Fulham. Derby would get less than 10 points.

If there were no points for nil-nil-nil draws, in 2011-2012, Manchester City would not win the title and Aguero's goal would not have had that impact. I'm all for this. I'm all for this. You might like this one as well then. In 27, 2018, City would have missed out on 100 points. Oh, really?

If it was no points for nil, no draws. Who suggested this? I didn't have a name on it. Nobody admitted it. Nobody admitted to it. I've got yours, okay. I think that's the best idea that we've had so far. I've got your idea,

which is to limit the amount of passes the team can make in their own half. Make your case. I think, I think I hate this playing out from the back nonsense. And I hate when a team just starts kicking it around in their area for ages and ages, especially when they're trying to see the game out. I would much rather have a passing limit and force people, force teams to go up further and attack into the other half.

I know, I know what Rory's just said about defending is part of the game and it's beautiful. But let's see them defend in their own half. I mean I don't want to see pressing really high up I want to see people trying to move out and actually get into the opposition's area to counter that though but if I knew for example that the team had a limited amount of passes

they can have in their own half I would press them even more because then that would limit the quality into the other half so in some ways it's kind of intuitive I would counter the point by saying TK at English football 1969 to 1992

that's what happens when not pass out from the back I'm not having it that football before 1992 was boring I have absolute nonsense from Smith You've got family interest in that Kelly but no we all remember what I watched it

I watched it is the other reason So did I and I fell in love with it then But if you compare what we watch now To the majority not Not certain Liverpool teams of that era No but nobody Nobody goes back and watches YouTube videos of draws in the middle of the table

Nobody goes and watch it Yeah but that's what most That's what most of football is Do you know what we're trying to We're not trying to improve the very best Because the very best is always amazing We're not actually trying to improve the very worst Because the very worst is often very entertaining

But what we are trying to do is improve The bit in the middle which sometimes can be a bit of a grind And that's what we're trying to improve Most of football is waiting for someone to take a throw-in That is what you're doing when you're watching football You're watching people wait to take throwing I don't know if you've heard but this is the season of the throwing Don't know if that's been covered on any of the many outlets

that you work on They take hours throwing. I like the idea. Actually, in that context, I like the idea of just making them, you have to, maybe there's a time limit on a throw-in. You have to take it in three seconds or you lose it. But then you get into like shot clock territory and stuff as well. We've been taking some ideas from the audience.

Community service in high visibility jackets for players a roll around trying to get a free kick or mouth off to the referee. See, for example, that's not going to be brought in. A red card means the player has to be substituted and gets a four-match ban. Currently an individual's red card, early in the game ruins the match for spectators and the transgressors club it's meant to ruin it for the transgressors club

that's part of the punishment I think that's somebody might have missed the point there instead of extra time 11 versus 11 after each oh now this this is getting into the kind of territory I hope we would get into after extra time 11 versus 11 after

each minute one player from each team is removed and it's decided by the other team until it's a 1 v1 scenario. Excited by the other team. Oh, that would be a car crash, by the way. Otherwise, you'd be fine with it. Oh, gosh.

That's a ball or the thing as well, but that is a really good idea. But I would, I'd go one step further. And I'd say every five minutes, you put an extra ball on the pitch. Well, if it's nil, nil at 90 minutes, throw another ball on, says Mark in Penzance. There you go. Extra time, sudden death, multi-ball. Do you remember the advert that had multi-ball on it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was going to say that. Yeah, yeah. It was very much similar to that. But do you know one thing I think we should do is, do you remember MLS penalties that used to be taken from the halfway line? I don't hate them either. I think bring those back because I think penalties, so many players have become so good at penalties,

but bring those back from the halfway line. You have to like dribble and a keeper comes out. It's brilliant. That's for all the league as well, to be fair. Let's get this one. And Chris and Devon says, I really hate your shirt tugging. how about breakaway shirts with Velcro seams

if you tug someone's shirt it comes off in your hand you get a yellow card and it's basically crossing I think this is not Chris's point of view this is my point of view this is like football meets magic mic if everybody's got like

rip off Velcro shirts is that in polar league as well-in it will be let's hear from former Premier League referee Chris Foy the voice of sense who's been here at the BBC. Today's been a really interesting day

answering questions from members of the public, football fans and supporters from around the world and we've just been chatting about various things how they feel they could improve the game and one of the biggest things that raised its head is time and timekeeping. They like to see more time,

they like to see the ball in play for more time and I think there are changes that we could make to football because in the laws the referee acts as time timekeeper. I think there's an opportunity now to take that off the referees and have an independent timekeeper. So the ball would be in play more. There wouldn't be as many

stoppages. And of course it would improve the fan engagement where people would actually be able to look at the clock in stadia and see the clock counting down which would certainly build to more excitement. I feel that it's wrong but I can't make a logical argument for why it's wrong this one. Well, we'll have Diego Simeone out of a job. Yes, well, there is that.

There is that. And goalkeepers who fall on top of the ball. Absolutely, yeah. I think they're trialing this, actually. I don't know if there was an article about this a while back, I think. They were trying to do half an hour games, half an hour, half, sorry, and have the time stopped anytime the ball goes out. I think there's beauty in some of the dark arts.

players time wasting in a good way and sometimes it backfires on their own team because they're trying to waste time so often and then you see an equalizer being scored and then suddenly they want to get one back. I don't know, I'm torn on it. The issue with it is very soon people realize that it's like 5.30 and you're still in the stadium

from a 3 o'clock kickoff. Like it doesn't necessarily speed up the game as such if you give people the amount of time that they believe that they want all the dark arts as case said will still exist and also add the nuance into this that, you know, somebody will suggest, oh, we want more time, we want more time. You want more time until your team is winning a big game and you want less time

and you actively want them to slow the clock down. So all of a sudden, people go from tapping their watch and be like, oh, my goodness gracious, me, when will this game end? This is so stressful. So I think it's a lot of these things, I think they sound really good from the perspective of a neutral, but then when your team is being affected by it, I think it can very much change your perception, which is, you know, one of the beauties of football, in my opinion. Yeah, I think they're right on that.

It's not as logical as that. So it might be that if you go for a game clock, the games might take longer because teams will be like, right, well, you know, the ball's out of play now. So we'll take a couple of minutes at this point. Thanks very much. I don't think things always follow logically.

The other cautionary note, I would add to this, but the average 60-minute NFL game takes over three hours to complete with the various stoppages and timeouts. Now, I know there's a lot of changing going on and there's a lot of kind of lining up and preparing for certain moves and all of that. It is a bit of a cautionary note to,

strike on there. We have got one about a tactical timeout. Ashley Williams said you get one time out per half. You can use wherever you want before a corner before a free kick if someone's injured. So you actually get that time boxed off where if the manager needs to get hold of their team and change something, Ashley would let them have a timeout like they're doing in other sports. The only reason I would like that is just to see what nonsense Mikhail Artetta would come up with. Why him in particular? Because you know, he's the type to draw a light bulb or on a whiteboard or something. I'd love to see him bring that out onto the pitch

and see what he draws on to try and inspire the players. You could, you know, that's the start of a great idea. You could introduce the Phil Brown rule, which is where all team talks have to be done on the pitch. Yes. With players sitting around you like an upturned mushroom. You could even maybe, if you really wanted to go the whole hard, you bring out those little primary stool chairs

that you have to sit on at a pair in the evening. What's the difference between, what's the difference between, idea that Ashley has come up with and say, for example, in the last 18 months or two years when we see a goalkeeper mysteriously just lay down on the floor and treatment come on. You know, that's essentially a time in itself

and let's be honest, that tends to not be received very well by most people in a stadium or people watching at home. There was a team who post lockdown when the drinks breaks were introduced in lockdown because they got used to having that rhythm in the game

and that opportunity to talk to the bench and the bench for them to talk to the team and they would kick the ball out of play or they would do something round about that time in order to give themselves that thinking time. To embrace the impossible requires a vehicle that pushes what's possible. Defender 110 boasts a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms, a weighting depth of 900 millimeters and a roof load up to 300 kilograms.

Learn more at landrover.ca. He scored goals, lifted trophies and broken records along the way. It's a day to remember for Wayne Rooney. And now he's got a podcast. Welcome to The Wayne Rooney Show. Wayne Rooney, Kay Curd and me, Kelly Summers, break down the biggest stories in the Premier League and beyond. Plus, we'll hear the funniest, wildest and most outrageous stories from Wayne's career.

I've never seen the manager go at someone like he did. No way someone's getting in. You're just like saying, come on, leave him now. There's no way he could have played for Man United ever again. The Wayne Rooney Show, listen on BBC Sounds. We're discussing the changes we would make and the changes that other people have suggested if we were designing football from scratch. Our panel, and remember, these decisions are decisive, Rory Smith, Nader Minewa and Kay Kerd, here are some of your ideas. Instead of a penalty

shootout after extra time, do it before extra time. Knowing who would win if it's still level after 120 would increase the excitement of extra time and the result wouldn't be all the soldiers of the poor play that missed their penalty. Although, if you won on penalties and then had to play extra time, you would just defend, wouldn't you? If we're trying to encourage attacking football, it's not going to work for that. Whenever a goalkeeper's injured, they have to be immediately replaced by the club mascot to avoid time wasting.

Yeah, yeah, respect it. Yeah, that's Nick and Kingston. Abolished transfer fees, no other industry buys employees, so why should football? That's from John. Is that true? Do people not have buyout clauses, Rory? Do you have compensation? I think what no other industry is.

industry has. This is a very serious point. All of us, I can tell you, this is a real gear shift. I think no other industry has like an arbitrarily set figure that you have to randomly pay employer to access one of their employees. You might get compensation, I guess, but you don't get to pluck a figure out of the air. That's true in other sports as well. I think transfer fees, when you think about them, are deeply weird, but the problem is that it's how most clubs survive. So if you abolish them, you probably kill about 75% of football teams. How would people actually move then how would that work like the rest of us you know you'd um see out your contract or they pay you up you'd secretly apply for another job and you'd claim it you'd claim the sick day

and then then you would run in your office so many applications at the minute it's really strange seems like everyone wants to go there can't think why um onto more lighthearted nonsense uh we have been talking about the handball law i did say we would come back to it how can we reinvent the laws to make everything around handball a bit better or more straightforward. Here's Alan Shearer. One thing I would change I guess if you're given a free rein then for me it would be to change the handball

because proximity in an obvious position, not in an obvious, natural. For me it's pretty simple to say, is it deliberate handball or not. Can I please set the parameters for this a little bit by saying natural or unnatural or outside

of the silhouette, where the arm is. That is no more or less a subjective decision than deliberate handball, in my opinion. As somebody who has had many handballs given against them without ever really doing anything that would suggest I'm trying to get an advantage by being having arms,

like even the way you described it in terms of natural and unnatural, I would argue the most unnatural thing that you can do whilst trying to play football is defend with your arms behind your back, which is what some people try to do to start the ball from hitting their arms. So that, again, it's counterintuitive. And then I think for Alan's point, about deliberate or not,

how many people realistically are deliberately trying to stop the ball with their hand outside of, say, maybe Louis Suarez and the World Cup? It's not really something you think about doing. And to be fair, that happened in 2010, and it is the one example that everybody raises. Terry Henri, that's the one. Against Ireland, France against Alan. I don't know whether Jeff, my childhood football coach, was a sort of savant. He might have just been a guy who was letting his son take all the free kits.

I'm not sure. but I'm not bitter about it but we were taught as kids for it to be a handball you have to like move there has to be motion of your hand towards the ball that is much easier

to gauge than are you in an unnatural position and what is the silhouette of your body the silhouette thing is one of those football jumping the shark moments where that was not a thing

in Kay's beloved 1980s but isn't it isn't the point of it just to cut isn't the point of the silhouette thing a little bit like drawing the line on offside in that there has to be, it's trying to take the subjectiveness out of the decision making.

So if you say it's outside of the kind of rough outline of a body with your hands by your side, then it's going to be given as handball. It makes it a less subjective decision for the referee to make. We are wonders of evolution. The natural silhouette of the human is Vitruvian man. Like you can put your hands in all.

of those positions. The most unnatural thing about playing a football match is when you've had to fly there by plane, that's unnatural. Having your body in a suspicion, like a certain position is not un-natural. Suspicious position. Suspicious is different. Well, like talking behind the hands or... They should give penalties away if you're acting suspicious. I agree with that.

Loitering with intent. I agree with Alan Shearer's echoey suggestion, which is you should have to motion to, you should have to be trying to hit the ball with your hand. The penalties that are given for players because they are standing there with arms are ridiculous. And the punishment massively outweighs the crime. Here's one then that takes that to the next level. Get rid of handball altogether. Only the goalkeepers are allowed to catch the ball.

You can't, so you can have handball, but you can't catch the ball. I feel like there was a big split about this with William Webb Ellis, quite a long time. I'm sure that was one of those things that came up. That was catching, though. He's saying no catching, so we're not getting into rugby football here. Can you juggle? Presumably, yes. Presumably, as long as you never have control of the ball,

Harry says, which is very similar to the point that you're... Hand to ball is a penalty, ball to hand is not a penalty. That would stop players for aiming for hands in the penalty area. I'm not sure players have actually... I'm not sure that's really happened. We thought that might happen is players would kick the ball onto the opponent's hand. I'm not sure that's really...

Suarez did it for a bit. Suarez definitely did it for a bit. Yeah, okay. I feel like there was a point where Spanish football they were just giving three kicks for hand ball if it just touched somebody's hand

just to give a personal thing I think the expectation in Spanish football is that if a ball hits a hand it's hand ball that there is it isn't

yeah but it isn't seen in the same way that it would be seen in Premier League football where there is this constant back and forth about what constitutes ball to hand

can I just say by the way I think and I'm obviously potentially hugely biased but it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wrong in this instance I think attackers

will try and get advantage the handball more than defenders will, but it's the defenders that get penalised more. And if we were to look through, it is little, like little touches or even to go through history, introduce one, I don't know, Diego Maradonna perhaps.

Like, defenders aren't. But that would never be allowed now because of VAR, which we will get to. I'm talking about, yeah, I'm talking about intent. I'm talking about intent to use your hand because as a defender, it's the last thing on your mind

when you're defending, because you know how ridiculous it is if you try and stop something with your hand, yet still there's a very, a chance to get penalised for it. Yeah, but the examples that we're using of attackers are historic. You know, we've got three examples now, and it's taken us that time to get it. 2009 for Tieri-on-R-Ree, the 2010 World Cup for Luis Suarez, and Diego Maradonna was 1986,

which is K's Day. No, no, no, no, because the point I would, yeah, the point I would make is that some of the handballs which attackers have done, thankfully, they've been seen. Think about times when you see a bunch of the defence. is looking so outraged. He's handballed it. They've handballed it, so on, going crazy. You see that a lot more than the defender's thinking,

I'm going to try and save this on the line, for example. I do sympathize with you. But I do sympathize with you, Nedden. But I don't feel like, you know, strikers are going to start trying to be like snooker players and look at the angles if they can hit somebody's hand that it goes in at a certain angle. Sorry, I was coming from a different angle.

I was talking about a striker touching the ball, not a striker kicker. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, yeah. Yeah, that's sorry, that's what I was trying to say. If you move your hand towards the ball, that's a deliberate act, and that's a punishment. Whereas if you're trying to control it and it hits your thigh and then it happens to roll up your arm, that's not something that we need to be legislating a game. But that's not something that should be given under the advice.

Just because referees sometimes don't get it right, that's not a problem with the law. That's a problem with the interpretation of the law. Yeah, but I think the issue with a lot of this stuff and offside is the same is that they keep kind of messing around the interpretation. to try and find some sort of objective truth that doesn't exist. And that's why silhouette is cleaner. I just don't care enough about Hamill in terms of what the actual law is. I just care that it is consistent. Just make it clear and move on.

Much like Offside, which is what your change would be, Rory. What would you do with Offside? Daylight. I think Daylight makes so much sense. And Nedden, because he's a pedant, will come back at me and say that... It never existed. It never... You will say it in that exact voice.

That was a real choice. Where's that come from? Did I sound like him? Oh, wow. No, I just, I think. That was my pedant's voice, not my Nedden voice. Yeah, of course, yeah. The argument it dates daylight is always that it kind of, it makes it too easy for the attackers.

But then, you know, we talked about trying to encourage goals. I don't personally approve of the being more goals. But I think encouraging the attackers is not a bad thing. Maybe it forces defences deeper. is possible, but I just think it feels much more naturally just. I've said this before, and people always laugh. There is such a thing as spiritually offside. And a lot of the, like, the toenail off sides that you see now,

fans don't look at that and think that's offside. They might agree. If it's against your team, you will look at and go, well, actually, according to the laws of the game, that is offside. Is that your Nedden voice? That's my Nedden voice. From the top rope again? What's going on here?

but I don't I don't think in our right like conscious minds we think we see a player who's there was one of the champions league last week that where I think it was a shoulder blade was offside you don't look at that and think that's offside I think if you do dayline just need to make the lines thicker when they're when they're looking at it all it does is move the problem to somewhere else because while we still have that measuring system in place for offside or on side it's only it will come down to a toenail it doesn't matter whether it's because there's going to be daylight. It doesn't matter if it's going to be from anywhere on the body that you can play the

ball. It doesn't matter if it's, well, you know, any part of the tech that's on side means that they're on side, which is the Rsen-Vengar version. It doesn't matter because it will always come down in a lot of instances to the tiniest of margins and that's what people get annoyed about. That's absolutely right. There will always be controversial ones. They'll always be close ones.

But with daylight, it's kind of clearer, it's crisper, it's neater. but also you've got an extra you've got too much an advantage it's already weighted in your favour and you've pushed it too far rather than at the moment it feels really technocratic So give them an inch and don't let them take a mile

is what you're saying Exactly my policy online Nendom's really not happy I'm just looking at it My change was that there should be an appeal system where much like in criminal justice where you get two for the players to call two for the manager

and one for the fans and I want the fans won just because everyone would use theirs in the first two minutes as soon as there was a decision given against their team. That was never a throw. That was our ball. It was every single time the fans would blow it. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. I think fans all coming together to think about something in the same way might be a bit tricky, especially fans in a stadium who, you know, to sort of, in my opinion, tell it like it is in some ways. I would have a first pass the post system, Edom, whereby if 50% of the stadium, of the home fans in the stadium, the away fans

would have their own buzzers, 50% of the fans in the stadium supporting that team, if they thought, right, we want to use it right now, that's when you'd use it. Yeah, I would say that if 50% of the fans want to use it, I reckon the players and the staff would also want to use it because it would probably be something quite significant. But I get you thinking, and I don't mind it overall. But again, I was just going to say, fans in the stadium, they get the best atmosphere, but the worst perspective of a game because they don't get a chance to see things twice. So if you are watching from home, you know when to push the buzzer. If you're in the stadium, you may just be wasting your buzzer. Then let's have six appeals. It's two for the players,

two for the managers, one for the stadium fans and one for the people watching on television. Let's try it out on Baller League first. I think it's really been done. See how it goes. Final topic of the evening. We've waited as long as we can. How do we improve VAR? The only rule is, it has to be a change that improves it. We're going to assume that we can't get rid of because that just closes the whole conversation down. Rory's gone for the reviews. What would you do, Nedham? How would you make VAR more acceptable to supporters? For me, with VAR, a lot of it depends on, like, is the outcome going to favour you or go against you? I think that can really

affect how at times how you perceive time, for example. But as well as that, I think ourselves, people who play, people who watch and people who don't referee, we see very much a different game. So I think in some ways, like seeing the way that the video system referees work and the outcomes that sort of proceed from it, they kind of show us the blind spots at times that we have in terms of understanding the game of football. In terms of how could you improve it? Like, they're doing stuff every year with PGMO, all that stuff.

trying to help people understand it more but I think deep down and this is going to sound really toxic and I was once this person I think they just hate referees and refereeing decisions so I don't really know how it can be helped that's my stance on it and I know that they're doing the best that they can

but people always have a sense of resentment to go back to my initial point a lot of the time it's dependent on whether this is going to favour you or not sorry what do you think how do we make it more palatable Kay how do we make fans if not, embrace BAR.

I think fans need to know what's going on in the stadium, for one. I think there's a lot of time where we're seeing the conversations afterwards and we're not hearing what's going on. Especially when you're in the stadium, you don't know what's going on. And they're like, there's a VAR check. I think if it's a lot more transparent and people are able to see the reasoning behind what's happening, it will make VAR a lot more palatable. But also, I do think that we don't need to use VAR for everything.

I don't think VAR should be going back to like something that's happened a minute ago. Now the ball's gone out of play. Unless the referee's seen it, I don't really think. Yeah. Yeah. I know where you're coming from. I think ultimately, again, like I said, I'm calm with referees. I've got friends who are officials and so on.

And the job that they have to do. Yeah, so I'm the plant here. I apologize. But the job that they have to do is a tough job because some of the stuff that they don't give it's because they've not seen it, but it's not through bad intent. It's just that they've done, they've not seen it. But, Nodam, this is, this I think is, if you don't have VAR,

I think this is people's frustration. There are very clear laws of the game, some of which are open to interpretation that players and officials are briefed about heavily before the start of the season. The referees go in to talk to the players. I think they do it twice across the course of a season, once at the beginning and once in the middle, and they go in and talk about it.

And then what happens sometimes on the pitch is not what players and managers have been told before the, before the start of the, of the season. You hear managers come out in their interviews and say, we had, we, we see it, you know, the handball law is one that we've all discussed tonight, where it's that idea of, of the silhouette that we, we feel we've all been told about. And yet still, if you sit in a studio with pundits, as I do most weekends, they will not have a consensus. They will all have a consensus on whether or not they think it's a handball, but they will not come to a consensus or whether or not the referee will give it.

And I think that's where the problem is. Well, what's happened to the time wasting initiative that was meant to start this season? They did it for a couple of weeks and they kind of forgot about it. There was the bit... Well, they were hot on it after Qatar, weren't they? That was the sort of...

But there was the bit where they made being offside legal for a bit after Manchester City stood against Astonville a few years ago and then they quietly put out an apology saying actually you're not meant to do that. Sorry, that doll shouldn't have stood. You see it all the time. I mean, Howard Webb's come out today

and said that the official were right to disallow Liverpool's doll at City, which, for the record, I think they were. But, you know, you sort of think, what a shock. Man in charge of referees says referees made correct decision. No, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's bored-like conspiratorial, that. You're better than that, worry.

It's not a conspiracy. I'm just saying it's very obviously in Howard Webb's interest to say the referees were right there. No, it's not. It's not. No, no, no. It isn't. But I think that's, that's factually correct. That's not to say he's going to come out and say something that's wrong. It's just that if there's a grey area,

he is going to come out on the side of the referee. Sure. The issue with VAR has always been mission creep, and Kay touched on it. It's that there was meant to be... VAR was brought in, because of Tieri-on-Ree, it's all his fault. It was because of that handball against Ireland. In the same way, it's Doleine technology is because Frant Lampard can't shoot accurately. It was the handball and it's the island, and this platini and various people at your wafer said,

we need to have a way of stopping really obvious injustices. And now we've got it where they're kind of watching every single thing. It's a surveillance state in the Premier League. But that's also because if they don't, people on television will. But it's fans. But if you as a fan have access to more information than a referee and you can see that something is clearly wrong, but you can see that from the seventh of seven angles. But also, they don't need about five minutes to just look at something.

If it's that clear and obvious, it should take 30 seconds. you could time limit VAR checks and then if you can't if you can't make your mind up even worse idea you can't make your mind up in 30 minutes

in 30 seconds and just say well you know it's one of those things it could go either way it's either obvious or it's not yeah and we'll stick with the on-field decision

if there isn't enough evidence in 30 seconds if there isn't enough second time in 30 seconds but also I think there is so little tolerance for error now because there's a referee

on the pitch there are two assistant referees there's a fourth official all right that's not his job and then there's a an assistant, they're VAR and there's an assistant VAR. And if between all of them, they can't get a decision right, that doesn't reflect well.

Hold on. Maybe we need more of them. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, if they, if they make a glaring error, but I'm trying to think of the most glare. The Lewis D.S golf and Liverpool against Tottenham a few years ago, something like that. There is no excuse for that. When every time that PGMOL have to come out and apologize, or say that wasn't right. Who's the front of that? It's not Howard Webb is it? That's not even going against his people, is it?

No, but what Rory was saying wasn't that Howard Webb can come out and defend the indefensible, but if there's a grey area, he will come out in support with the people who... Howard Webb is his own person, I promise you. Yeah, no, I know, but what I'm saying that's, but we're not criticising for that.

We're saying that's part of his job is to give the referee's perspective and to stand up for the people who he's in charge of. That's not a criticism of him. That's saying that is how it worked. But the referees aren't always, just because the referees, as a body, say something is correct, isn't necessarily right. But it helps their numbers.

But it's all to do with interpretation. That's the issue is that the rules are, the laws, capital L, is very important, are open to interpretation. And those interpretations shift. And what fans, I think, find frustrating is that it's really hard to keep up with those shifting interpretations. And because we are pursuing an objective truth from a subjective matter, we are all frustrated. So maybe the way you improve football and VAR in particular is we all just chill out a bit

that might help. That's never going to happen. And also, we can't talk about VAR anymore. It just makes my head itch. I find it a very stressful conversation to have. It's here to stay and maybe some of those changes to the laws that we've been discussing.

Some of the more outlandish ones would bring a little bit of the chaos that Kay wants to the game going forward. And who doesn't want chaos? one law very very quickly because we're very short of time one law that you want to take forward i'll go for ellen whites we said the goalkeeper's got to come up from every corner that's like true chaos for me yeah i'm up for that one uh it's the old walcott's suggestion of two goals uh in the goals long range goals yeah roary i like extra time where you take a player off and throw an extra

ball on i like the one where you limit the number of players in the box for a corner i think that could be quite good fun as well right thank you very much to Rory, to Natham and to Kay. Thank you for joining us. You can carry this on online, of course, if you want, because that's the most healthy place to have a debate. It's at Five Live Sport on social media if you want to find that. And remember, there's plenty of Football Daily podcast to download on BBC Sounds. I'm Maisie Adam. And I'm Susie Ruffel. And we host the Women's Football podcast, Big Kick Energy. Each week, we bring you the latest from the WSL and B.O.

Whether you're a lifelong fan like me or a newer fan like me and have recently got swept up in the lioness's excitement We've got everything you need To know about the women's game And chance, we've got chance Oh yes, we love a chance

And finding ways to shoehorn in Some truly obscure pop culture references It's actually quite a silly podcast Yeah, listen now on BBC Sounds Yeah, you should, okay, cool