Wenger not in support of Van Basten’s plan to scrap offside rule

Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has questioned the proposal for some rules in the game to be abolished, as suggested by FIFA technical director, Marco van Basten.

The former Holland striker, also suggested that penalty shoot-outs should be replaced with eight-second run-ups and advocated for the introduction of sin-bins in football.

But Wenger said “change for change’s sake” should not be the goal.

“Changing in itself is not a good quality, improving is the real target,” Wenger said at his Thursday press conference.

“Some of the proposals are worth discussing, some I don’t see any big interest.

“The one I don’t find interesting is to suppress offside. Offside is what makes the team good together. It is an intelligent rule as well, it is important to keep that in the game.

“Overall football improves, people say it is too tight and compact but football has always been like that, defence creates a problem for the attack and the attack finds a solution.”

The Gunners boss, however, agreed with the idea that captains should be the only players to speak with referees.

He added: “It is a very good proposal, we all dream of that, but it never happens in our sport.

“It’s the worst bit of stupidity I’ve read for a long time, and I read a lot. It’s an immeasureable act of stupidity!” Gourcuff told media at his club’s training centre on Thursday.

“We’re back to the times of the soule, village against village and at the time, it ended in deaths.”

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