Marco van Basten’s radical plan to shake up soccer

Restricting players to 60 games. Replacing penalty shootouts with eight-second run-ups. Marco van Basten has ideas.

Marco van Basten would like to replace penalty shootouts with eight-second one-on-ones with the goalkeeper.

Restricting players to 60 games a year, replacing penalty shootouts with eight-second run-ups, introducing orange cards to send players off for 10 minutes, and scrapping offside — they are all propositions former AC Milan and Netherlands forward Marco van Basten has raised in his role as technical director at FIFA to stir debate in the game.

Rather than using his job to meddle, van Basten highlights the need to preserve soccer as the world’s most popular sport.

“I have spoken to a lot of coaches and players,” van Basten said. “We have to promote quality instead of quantity. We are playing too much football now. We have to defend players because they have to play so much and are not fresh or fit anymore. That’s bad for the quality of the game.

“Even in June, when the big tournaments are played, players cannot perform to their maximum because now if players are really successful they can play up to 75 official games in the year. I think that’s a bit too much and maybe they should stop at 55 or 60.”

Although FIFA will expand the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams from 2026, that won’t burden players with any additional games. Instead, club sides would have to explore reducing the number of fixtures, potentially by reducing the number of lucrative friendly games played on tours.

“That’s all for money but we have to think about football and not money,” said van Basten, who was hired by FIFA in September.

“For a lot of clubs that’s not easy. But there is enough money in football.

“(Cristiano) Ronaldo and (Lio­nel) Messi are earning so much money. If they are earning a little bit less but performing better that’s good for football.”

Asked about countries such as Eng­­­land or France no longer playing two cup competitions alongside their league fixtures, he said: “In my opinion that should be an interesting discussion.”

Van Basten knows some of radical changes he proposes could make traditionalists uneasy. But the 1992 FIFA world player of the year wants to ensure the global game has a say on its future.

“We should not just let the game be organised by those with the money,” he said from FIFA HQ in Zurich.

“The big clubs, like Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City and Real Madrid, have everything. In football you need opponents, competition because if you are alone with two or three clubs controlling everything you don’t have any competition.”

Some potential changes proposed by van Basten include:

• Penalty shootouts: Rather than burdening players with an additional 30 minutes of play when cup games are level after 90 minutes, van Basten is suggesting going straight to penalties. “I think everybody is pretty tired after 120 minutes,” he said. “Maybe the player should start 25m from goal and then you can dribble the goalkeeper or shoot early. But you have to make a goal within eight seconds. It’s more skill and less luck. It’s maybe a bit more spectacular.”

• No offside: Scrapping the offside rule could make soccer more visually appealing, van Basten suggests. “I think it can be very interesting watching a game without offside. Football now is already looking a lot like handball with nine or 10 defenders in front of the goal. It’s difficult for the opposition to score a goal as it’s very difficult to create something in the small pieces of space they give you. So if you play without offside you get more possibilities to score a goal.”

• Four quarters: Soccer is increasingly intense and gruelling, with a single 15-minute break between 45-minute halves. “We want to have a game which is honest, which is dynamic, a nice spectacle.” Introducing four quarters could be advantageous. “The coach can have three times with his players during the game.”

• Sin bins: Now there is no middle ground between players being shown a yellow card and receiving a red card. “Maybe an orange card could be shown that sees a player go out of the game for 10 minutes for incidents that are not heavy enough for a red card.”

Any changes to the laws of the game cannot be forced through by van Basten, however close he is to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

He said he wanted to listen to the views of the world before any proposals were taken to the game’s lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board. FIFA controls half of the eight votes on IFAB, with the other four retained by the British associations.

AP