Offside is currently one of the most commonly used words when it comes to football. Why does this law even exist? What is the meaning of the offside law? Why is it the way it is today? And since when?

Which are the changes of the Laws of the Game for the season 2019/20? Are they changed before?Nachspielzeiten will check it for you. This is the English version of Die Fußballregeln 2019/2020 und die historische Entwicklung. The IFAB announced the law amendments of the Laws of the Game for the season 2019/20. They will became valid on June 1st, 2019, but the final of the Men’s Champions League on this day will still be played according to the LotG of the 2018/19 season, as the game still counts for this season. But the Women’s World Championship, starting on 7th June 2019, will then be played according to the new laws. As expected, all law amendments were adopted. In the run-up most of them became already public, so that I could already deal with them (see article Possible IFAB law amendments 2019 from a historical perspective). On 14th March 2019, the IFAB published all amendments as a summary and in detail. Ensuing, I present the law amendments and, if possible, add the historical development. Not included …

After the piecemeal comparison of some different sets of rules for football without or with little allowed handling, all of them will are compared in this blogpost. The individual comparisons: Rules, end of 1840s Rules, end of 1850s Rules, begin of 1860s   The field of the play The measures of the field of the play were only mentioned in the 1860s. Since they are quite similar here, it can be assumed that they have already been aligned and that unwritten agreements were therefore also in place. Goal measures Only in Eton there was a height limit which was already 7 ft in 1847 and did not change afterwards. All other rules did not mention any height limitation within this period. The width of the goal varied, if it was specified at all. In Eton it remained constant at 11 ft, in Harrow (1858) goals were 4 yd wide, in Cambridge (1863) 5 yd, at the FA (1863) even 8 yd. It seems that goals used to be much narrower than today. Number of players …

In 1877 the Sheffield FA adopted the FA Rules after several years of trying to find compromises. Between 1863 and 1877, there were meetings again and again, especially between John Charles Shaw and Charles William Alcock. There were attempts at rapprochement and open dissonances between the two associations on the rules for association football. A representative of Sheffield FC, from 1867 the Sheffield FA, was always present at the annual general meetings of the FA in London and also represented on the committee. But I don’t know what the relationship of Sheffield FC or FA to the London FA was like, because all members had to play according to FA Rules, which was definitely not practiced in Sheffield. (If you know it, please use the comments.) Sheffield FA and Football Association organized a game for December 2, 1871 with Sir John Charles Clegg, a game between selections of both associations to try out the rules of the other. Shaw and Alcock were the captains of the two selections. But no agreement was reached yet. But …

The image that football sceptics and opponents formed in Germany at the end of the 19th century mixed the medical concern – that the human body could not cope with such a long and enduring effort – with the national ideology of gymnasts, and mixed statistics on injuries in football, rugby and American football. In 1893, the Westminster Gazette in threatening words titled the soccer game „71 blooming youngsters have been killed“. Football puts too much strain on the heart and lungs. And if that doesn’t lead to death, then it’s the violent way of playing that regularly bursts bones. And in addition this unnatural, forward bent posture, which is not at all German. – So the opponents of the football play like also other kinds of sports. The supporters of the sports, English men in Germany at the end of the 19th century and enthusiastic German, refuted the accusations. Again and again the sports newspapers and the DFB’s football yearbooks before the First World War was justifying why football was not as violent as …