Roy Keane's new tennis-style refereeing rule that could change football is being trialled

Football is experimenting with a tennis-style ‘challenge’ system, a concept that Roy Keane has previously advocated for. According to former Premier League official Howard Webb, who now heads up the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the system is being trialled at a couple of high-profile youth tournaments.

The 53-year-old was the latest guest on The Overlap podcast, and it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to football’s rulebook and what changes could be made to improve it. Gary Neville told Webb: “We went on a trip a few weeks ago, and we are talking about rule changes in the game, and Roy’s [idea] was about having one challenge.”

Continuing, the Manchester United icon said: “Like in cricket, you have three challenges [but] Roy was thinking, rather than every decision being challenged, just have one coach’s challenge or captain’s challenge. Basically, one per half for each coach or each captain.

“You maybe give them five seconds or 10 seconds to sort of give a signal [to the referee]… so you’re no re-reffing the whole game, you’ve just got a challenge each half.”

Webb responded to the proposal saying: “We’d only really know [if it would work] if we see it in practice. Interestingly enough, at the moment there’s the U-17s Women’s World Cup, and we’ve just finished the U-20s Women’s World Cup in Colombia – they’re using this on trial. So each coach has two challenges a game.”

Both cricket and tennis both use highly-successful challenge systems, where teams or players have a finite number of unsuccessful challenges but can continue to challenge if their appeals are successful. And Webb suggested that football rulemakers will look to adopt a similar structure.

However, not every refereeing decision will be open for review. FIFA has set out plans to trial a challenge system that would only apply to situations involving goals, penalties, red cards, and mistaken identity, as announced in May.

The proposed method for initiating a challenge involves managers twirling their fingers and presenting a card to the fourth official, then specifying what they want reviewed at the pitch-side monitor. While players can suggest a review, it is ultimately up to the coach to decide.

Pierluigi Collina, the refereeing legend now working as FIFA’s head of referees, spoke highly of initial trials at the Blue Stars/FIFA Youth Cup in Zurich, describing them as “very, very positive”. He added: “Our aim is to continue to trial this new system, namely in our youth competitions. We hope to be able to give all of you who have indicated an interest in the possibility to implement this system in your competitions.”

These trials aim not just to assess the system’s effectiveness but also to gauge reactions from players, coaches, and spectators to both successful and unsuccessful challenges, and to determine whether there’s potential for misuse, such as time-wasting.

This follows a few months after Premier League clubs cast their votes on the potential abolition of VAR, due to ongoing worries about the system’s efficacy. However, the idea was quashed by a 19-1 vote, with Wolves being the sole team advocating for the removal of the technology.