IFAB approve further trials of significant rule change that would benefit Kyogo Furuhashi at Celtic

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IFAB has approved further trials to the offside rule that could be of a major benefit to Kyogo Furuhashi at Celtic.

As it stands right now, according to rule 11.1, Offside position, on the IFAB website a player is offside when:

• any part of the head, body or feet is in the opponent’s half (excluding the halfway line) and
• any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponent’s goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent

The Japanese striker has fallen foul of the offside rule on many occasions over his time at Celtic as Kyogo’s style of play means that he is constantly playing off the shoulder of the last defender.

This has led to the Japan international having numerous goals being flagged for offside either by the match officials or VAR but all of that could be about to change.

IFAB have announced that they have now approved the trialling of a new version of offside which was announced in their March news bulletin this year.

This will now be the third year of trialling the rule change which, in short, means that a player can now only be ruled offside if their whole body is ahead of the last defender.

The proposed rule change was illustrated on social media channel X by the football account, Football Talk:

Kyogo could run amok at Celtic if rule change is applied

Just imagine the number of goals Kyogo Furuhashi could now score for Celtic if this new rule change passes the trial stage and is applied throughout football.

The Japanese striker had two chalked off at the weekend as he narrowly strayed into an offside position in the 3-1 win against St Johnstone.

Under the proposed new rule, Kyogo would have been adjudged to have been onside and both goals would have stood.

Interestingly, Alistair Johnston‘s goal would also have stood against Craig Levein’s side as James Forrest would not have been flagged as infringing the attaching phase of play.

This season, Kyogo has scored a goal, on average, every 199 minutes and has been flagged offside 15 times. That’s a flag raised against him on average 0.68 times per 90 minutes. [Footystats]

How many of those offsides led to goals being chalked off? You would have to imagine it would be quite a few.

The Celtic fans will be hoping that this change comes to fruition because it will not only increase Kyogo’s goalscoring rate but also take away the buzzkill that is VAR as the refereeing technology seems to get involved every time Kyogo finds the back of the net.