(Football news) In the latest meeting of football’s lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board (Ifab) in Doha, there were talks about introducing ‘kick ins’ in the sport. The idea is amongst the several proposals that were introduced last year with the aim of making the game faster and more entertaining for the audiences. Speaking about kick ins, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said “Proposals were made to test kick-ins. While we may be a bit sceptical on some of these measures… if some proposals are there to help the game, we will not know it before we look into it, so we will look into these proposals as well." 

Kick ins are meant to replace throw ins, which were introduced to football in the 1860’s. According to former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, throw-ins and free-kicks were the "two big time-wasters at the moment.The target is to make the game more spectacular and quicker, and maybe with throw-ins you could play with your feet, in a limit of five seconds for example but it has to be tested and then has to be accepted by the Ifab."

In other reforms, semi-automated video assistant referee (VAR) technology could be used for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has claimed that the decision to implement the technology will be taken before the tournament begins in November while Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the governing body's referees committee said "I'm confident it can go ahead." The new technology will use automated ball detection to highlight offsides within seconds while the use of five substitutes has also been introduced as a permanent feature after initially being trialled during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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