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LOTG 2016-2017 - Lots of New Stuff:

  1. The most comprehensive revision to the Laws of the Game in history was approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) during its 130th Annual General Meeting held in Cardiff, Wales on March 5, 2016. In a statement IFAB indicated the goal was “to increase the universality of the Laws by making them easily understood so football throughout the world benefits from consistent interpretation and application.” The Laws and Interpretations now are combined and presented in the same place. More than 10,000 words were removed to cut back on redundancy, contradictions and unnecessary words.
  2. Many elements of the Laws were re-written for the International game and, as usual, some changes are of less interest to those of us who don't work at that rarified level. In general, many of the changes codify referee actions governed by generations of tradition and common sense. Some changes are intended to restore fairness, in situations where previous revisions had unexpected consequences by limiting the referee’s options, in dealing with fouls and misconduct. Finally, other changes had to be made to recognize the modern game, where the players no longer appear to be as honor-bound as by tradition. These changes were effective June 1 to accommodate international competitions that started before July 1 (such as Euro2016 and the Copa America). However, each state/national organization will determine when they want to implement in their areas.

  4. *** LOTG 2016-2017 is the full version (English) of the new LOTG - released on 19 May, 2016.This document includes the new LOTG, a Summary section listing the changes made, a section giving explanations for the changes, a Glossary, and some practical advice for referees. (The Spanish version, an early release of a text-only version, is at: Reglas de Juego 2016/17).
  5. *** LOTG 2016-2017+Bookmarks+Links is a version of the 2016-2017 LOTG in which I have generated bookmarks to all of the individual Laws, Summaries, and Explanations, along with internal links that will make it easier to move between related sections. Please feel free to distribute this as you will, but remember that, although the content has not been changed, it is an "unofficial" static version released by me on 20 June, 2016. *** NOTE: although the bookmarks should work in every browser, for security reasons your browser may not allow you to use these internal navigation links (e.g. Summary of Changes, or Details of Changes). For me, those links work in Chrome and Vivaldi but not in Edge or Firefox; you might need to download the PDF file and read it in a PDF viewer, such as Acrobat Reader

  7. *** Change of Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct: Denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity (125.67 MB) , released on 2 June, 2016, provides more detail on an important change in Law 12. *** NOTE: this is a large file because it includes a number of video examples; for security reasons your browser likely won't play the videos, so you will need to download the PDF file and play it in a PDF reader, such as Acrobat Reader.
  8. *** The Laws of the Game - Questions and Answers (444.32 KB), released on 15 June, 2016, is a document that addresses questions raised by various Football Associations in response to the new LOTG. This document will likely continue to grow as additional questions are raised, and answered.

  10. *** Finally, I have consolidated what I consider the most important changes into a 3-page pdf file that you are welcome to use and distribute as you think appropriate: 2016-2017 LOTG Important Changes - Peter Guthrie
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