The offside rule in soccer has caused much controversy. Younger, who is currently the head of FIFA's Football Development Department, proposed a comprehensive reform of the offside rule two years ago, which would make it an offence for an attacking player to go over the opponent's penultimate defender with "his whole body". This major reform will be tested in Sweden first, and then be extended to Italy and Holland, and then be implemented across the board if it succeeds.
According to our offside rule, any part of an attacking player's body that is slightly over the opponent's second-to-last defender is offside, i.e. the controversial "offside of body hair". However, under the new rule advocated by Wenger, it is fine as long as the attacking player's "any effective part of the body" does not exceed the opponent's last two defenders, which is often disputed as "offside of body hair".
According to DirecTV Sports, the FIFA will first try it out in the Swedish Men's U21 and Women's U19 leagues, before moving on to the Netherlands and Italy. The team was proposed two years ago and was originally intended to be used in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but because the reforms were too big to be launched in time, it will be implemented step by step and is expected to have a good chance of being implemented in the end.
