With the new season kicking off in just over five weeks, the Premier League has a meeting scheduled today to vote on some pressing issues for the coming campaign.
High on the priority list for today’s meeting is VAR, substitutes, and fans attending matches. According to the Mail, representatives from all 20 clubs will vote on these and other items on the agenda today.
As far as VAR goes, the shareholders will look at how to implement the controversial technology for next season. However, with FIFA overseeing the process going forward, there could be restrictions on any improvements the Premier League decide to make.
FIFA wants to make the rules uniform across the different leagues so they could make further alterations. One area that may not be altered is the marginal offside calls that have really hurt the game in our opinion. FIFA reportedly plans to keep going to VAR even for the slightest of hints of a player being offside.
The Mirror is reporting that the lines drawn by VAR may no longer be shown to live television viewers. They’ll still be used to determine if a player is offside, however, the viewing public will no longer be shown the lines.
This would fall in line with the other top leagues in Europe and would likely be enforced by FIFA in any case. The reason the lines are under discussion is that they revealed how slim some of the offside calls were which led to ridicule of some of the VAR decisions.
The other two agenda items of note for today’s meeting are fans returning to watch the matches and whether the five substitute rule will remain.
A test policy during pre-season is under discussion where a limited number of fans will be allowed to attend games. If this proves successful, it could be implemented when the season starts on September 12th.
With limited preparation for the coming campaign, the Mail reports that it is expected the five substitute rule, as well as the increased number of subs, will be in place for next season.
So hopefully we’ll get some clarity on these issues today at some point.
Note – here’s a petition to sign to get an independent review of the EPL Takeover process – please sign it – thanks.
3 comments so far
AshLIE is a Joker
Aug 6, 2020 at 10:01 AM
Comment #1F@ck the premier league!
wynsleap
Aug 6, 2020 at 10:24 AM
Comment #2….. and so say all of us!
mactoon
Aug 6, 2020 at 10:53 AM
Comment #3It would be the ideal platform for Charnley to ask why the EPL refused to give a decision on the consortium’s owners’ test and ask them to comment on Staveley’s accusation that they said they would just sit on it month on month.