Dutch FA proposes rule changes including kick-ins, self-pass free kicks

The Dutch Football Association (KNVB) is proposing five radical rule changes to the way football is played.

Speaking at the Soccerex event in Amsterdam, Gijs de Jong, the KNVB’s secretary-general, was talking about how football may look by 2050.

De Jong outlined that the KNVB is lobbying FIFA and the International Football Association Board (IFAB), football’s law-making body, to implement its proposed changes. Its five proposals include throw-ins being replaced by kick-ins, self-pass free kicks, sin bins, flying substitutes, and the introduction of net playing time.

Kick-ins replacing throw-ins would mean when the ball goes out of play it will be kicked back onto the pitch as opposed to thrown in by the player. A self-pass free-kick would allow the player to pass the ball to themselves from a free-kick, something they are not allowed to do at the moment.

Flying substitutions would enable the manager to make as many changes as they want during a match. The current rules allow for five substitutions, which was increased in the Premier League and around Europe from three to five ahead of the 2022-23 season.

The KNVB also wants to see sin bins replace yellow cards and has been experimenting in the Netherlands with different times, initially starting at 10 minutes before switching to five.

It is also proposing 30-minute halves, doing away with the standard 45 minutes. As part of its ideas, the match would not stop when a substitution is taking place, rather, when the clock would be paused any time the ball goes out of play, meaning you would be guaranteed 60 minutes of in-play action.

The KNVB has implemented kick-ins and self-pass free-kicks in youth football and will be trialling all rule changes when PSV Eindhoven host the Otten Innovation Cup in August.

IFAB is aware of the KNVB’s proposals and its kick-ins instead of throw-ins idea has been discussed by the organisation’s Football Advisory Panel and Technical Advisory Panel before.

(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)