How changes to the Laws of the Game will affect Aston Villa in 2025/26
IFAB has issued its annual update and there are significant changes
The latest update to football’s rulebook has been published by the game’s lawmakers.
Aston Villa and everyone else in the world of football play to the Laws of the Game as set out by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which publishes a new version of the Laws of the Game in advance of every season.
IFAB consists of FIFA, the Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales and the Irish Football Association. FIFA has four votes and each individual FA has one vote.
Changes to the Laws of the Game require a minimum six-to-two majority vote, meaning that FIFA can effectively veto proposed alterations but needs backing from two of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to pass updates of its own. Fun.
Anyway, IFAB publishes the Laws of the Game every summer in two especially handy formats for the curious or informed supporter: it can be downloaded as a PDF or in the form of the IFAB app, which is – perhaps surprisingly – incredibly user-friendly.
There’s no excuse for ignorance.
Another thing IFAB does around this time each year is itemise all the changes and clarifications to the Laws of the Game from one season to the next in painstaking detail.
This is important stuff. It’s the stuff referees have to absorb much quicker than the rest of us, the rule changes that will be wilfully mangled in dispatches and excuses by the media and disgruntled football folk who plead ignorance despite the availability of the information right there in simple black and white and lime green underlining.
The Laws of the Game is an imperfect document by both design and oversight. It’s full of grey areas, intentionally leaving a good chunk of officiating to, well, the officials.
That’s not compatible with VAR but that’s a diatribe for another day.
What’s changed in the Laws of the Game 2025/26?
Eight of football’s laws are subject to the most recent updates, tweaks and clarifications.
Additionally, after ‘successful’ trials it’s now up to individual competitions (for example the Premier League) whether they wish to introduce those silly referee announcements after a VAR check.
The changes range from the entirely new rules outlined below to the most minuscule copy updates – this year, the text around Law 16: The Goal Kick has been amended to point the reader to other pages where the goal kick is referenced. Sexy stuff.
There’s a similar update to Law 17: The Corner Kick but there’s a rather more significant change there too.
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‘Only the captain’
There are two really significant changes to the Laws of the Game 2025/26 and the first falls under Law 3: The Players.
Here’s the text that’s been added:
“Competitions may implement the ‘Only the captain’ guidelines listed under ‘Notes and modifications’.”
In fact, the explanatory text specifies that competitions are encouraged to implement those guidelines.
What that means is that the captain of a team is in effect the only player permitted to enter into discussion with the referee without permission, as we’ve seen in a small number of competitions recently.
What it doesn’t mean is that the captain can show dissent on the basis that Football Twitter “Thought the captain can talk to the ref!!!!1”
The Premier League has opted in.
Incidentally, the existing text says that the captain – identified by way of an armband, which itself was a recent change – has “no special status or privileges”. We can expect a copy correction there next summer in light of this new section of Law 3.
The eight-second rule
The second big change is to Law 12: Fouls and Misconduct.
You’ve heard about this one too. Goalkeepers will now only be allowed to be in control of the ball with their hands (Villa fans will have a keen understanding of the technical definition of that after the final game of last season) for a maximum of eight seconds.
If you’re into your Laws of the Game and maths, you’ll know that eight seconds is two seconds longer than six seconds. The difference is that the new rule will be enforced in a big, bad way.
A goalkeeper holding the ball in their hands for longer than eight seconds will be penalised by the awarding of a corner kick against them.
The following subsequent updates have also been made:
Law 5: The Referee has new text requiring the referee to count down with their fingers the last five seconds of the eight permitted
Law 17: The Corner Kick has new text ruling that the corner awarded for an eight-second breach is taken from the corner nearest to the goalkeeper’s position when penalised
Offside
Yes, Law 11: Offside is changing again. But not much. Well, not at all, really.
The tweak has to do with what counts as a ‘touch’ of the ball when it comes to determining an offside position – in other words, when the ball counts as having been played.
The definition as it stands and mostly remains is that the first contact on the ball is what matters.
The new text is heroically specific:
“However, when the ball is thrown by the goalkeeper, the last point of contact should be used.”
What on earth has happened to football?
Anything else?
Of course! IFAB doesn’t mess about.
Law 8: The Start and Restart of Play has been changed so that 8.2 Dropped Ball is applied more fairly, dictating that the ball be given to the team that “has or would have gained possession” rather than the team that last touched it “if this can be determined by the referee”
Law 9: The Ball in and out of Play has been amended so that “If… a team official, substitute, substituted or sent-off player or player who is temporarily off the field of play… touches the ball while it is still in play but when it is clearly leaving the field of play” there is to be an indirect free kick and no further disciplinary action as long as the offending individual doesn’t intentionally interfere with play
How could that possibly be abused?