The Premier League has set out a revised suite of on-field principles ahead of the 2026\u201327 season aimed at addressing several contentious themes from 2025\u201326. The league said referees and match officials will follow the new regulations to reduce cynical play while retaining a high threshold for intervention. \u201cNot every contact is a foul,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Holding and deliberate obstruction are the primary targets. Defenders who focus solely on blocking or holding opponents with no regard for the ball will be penalized, and players deliberately impeding the goalkeeper will also be punished. The intent behind actions will be judged, with officials instructed to act where there is a calculated attempt to prevent a player from playing the ball.<\/p>\n
The directive responds to what the league described as widespread physicality from set-pieces, a feature that helped champions Arsenal. The issue prompted Brighton & Hove Albion manager Fabian H\u00fcrzeler to bring a Mixed Martial Arts fighter to training to teach his side how to cope.<\/p>\n
Timewasting is another focus. Behaviours from feigning injury to prolonging substitutions and delaying restarts can now be sanctioned under rules similar to those used at this summer\u2019s World Cup. Any player who receives on-field treatment must leave the pitch for at least one minute, twice the previous guidance. Deliberate delays to throw-ins and goal-kicks will face a five-second countdown and can result in a reversal of the decision in favour of the opposing team.<\/p>\n
Substitution procedure has been tightened. A player must exit within 10 seconds of their number being raised by the official. If they exceed that period, the substitute may only enter the field at the first stoppage after one minute of play.<\/p>\n
Hair pulling will remain a sending-off offence when malice, excessive force or brutality is evident, but officials will again consider intent and may issue a yellow when excessive force is not present. Of last season\u2019s three red cards for hair pulling, the league noted Dan Ballard\u2019s dismissal might have avoided a straight red, Michael Keane\u2019s red would likely still stand and Lisandro Mart\u00ednez\u2019s case fell between those examples.<\/p>\n
The plan with VAR is to limit its involvement. The system will not be used to correct corner decisions and there will be no intervention to recommend second yellow cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Premier League sets: 2026\u201327 principles to curb holding, clamp down on timewasting and limit VAR use<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,773,687,179,969],"tags":[1505,1162,1553],"class_list":["post-14281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-brighton-hove-albion","category-everton","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-bookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}