With the 2025/26 season almost upon us, here’s what to expect from match officials across the professional game in England.
Match officials will be empowered this season to:
- Apply changes to updated Laws of the Game, including key changes affecting goalkeepers, dropped ball restarts and penalty-kick procedures
- Continue to take a robust approach to participant behaviour, including player conduct and technical area discipline, with a new emphasis on applying the ‘Captains Only’ approach
- Protect player welfare, especially around head injuries, while deterring tactics designed to delay or disrupt the game
- Maintain a high threshold for penalising challenges, recognising that not all contact is a foul, while ensuring player safety
A summary of the key IFAB Laws of the Game changes are on the link below.
https://www.efl.com/news/2025/july/31/what-to-expect-from-match-officials-in-2025-26-
Comments
Always the way.
Also interested to see how the time wasting ‘injury’ to the goalkeeper is handled.
Any new laws or interpretations will only apply to the Charlton Athletic Football Club ...
Our forwards constantly man-handled but nine times out of ten being the ones penalised ...
At the other end of the pitch our defenders perform the same way as the oppo but give away free kick after free kick.
In other words we'll get fudged over by the officials, especially as we're the newbies in the division ... much the same as every year, really.
Cardiff - welcome to League One.
"If play is stopped with the ball inside the penalty area, the restart will be a dropped a ball to the goalkeeper."
Doesn't this shit get proof-read and signed off? Clowns.