By Frank Pingue
TORONTO, July 3 (Reuters) - The World Cup has given the Canadian Premier League plenty to discuss with FIFA after a disallowed Cristiano Ronaldo goal was among 17 that would have stood under a revised offside interpretation its top flight is trialling, the league said on Friday.
The CPL has been testing the so-called "daylight" offside rule in its matches this year in cooperation with FIFA.
Under the new approach, an attacking player is ruled offside only if there is a clear gap, or
"daylight", between the attacker and the defender, meaning the attacker will be considered onside if any part of the body that can legally score is level with or behind the second-last defender.
The most recent of the 17 World Cup instances identified by the CPL came during the round-of-32 clash between Portugal and Croatia on Thursday at Toronto Stadium, where each side had a goal ruled out for offside that the league said would have stood if the daylight offside interpretation was in effect.
"It's going to make for an interesting conversation coming out of the World Cup with FIFA," said CPL Executive Vice President Costa Smyrniotis, who attended Portugal's 2-1 win over Croatia. "Not only looking at the trial in our league, but observations from the World Cup, and how do you bring those all together?
"At the end of the year, once the trial's done in the CPL, we'll have a better understanding of whether this is something that makes sense going forward — does this trial become permanent?"
'SO MUCH DISCONTENT' OVER OFFSIDE RULES
In the Portugal game, Ronaldo chipped the ball over the Croatia goalkeeper to draw his side level at 1-1, but the celebration of what would have been his first World Cup knockout stage goal was cut short as the linesman's flag was raised, ruling the 41-year-old forward offside.
A video assistant referee review confirmed the decision and when the image shown on the stadium screens showed Ronaldo was offside by the slimmest of margins — his shoulder was slightly ahead of the second-last defender — he simply raised his hands to the air in exasperation.
Petar Sucic's disallowed goal that would have put Croatia ahead in the 80th minute also would have counted under the rule currently being used in the CPL.
"There's been so much discontent around 'that should have been a goal.' The Croatian fans outside the stadium last night all wanted to talk about missing out on a goal, complaining about the offside call," Smyrniotis said before focusing on the CPL's efforts.
"Well, here's a national league that's actually trialling an opportunity to fix this — to set the rule right, in a way that I think is a little bit more fair, more understandable, and ultimately, if all goes well, gives a little bit of the advantage back to the attacker, which also creates a little bit more excitement and entertainment in our game.
'WE'D LIKE ENTERTAINING FOOTBALL'
The revised interpretation, proposed by former Arsenal manager and current FIFA Chief of Global Football Development Arsene Wenger, is aimed at boosting attacking play and improving the flow in competitive matches.
Smyrniotis said the CPL, which had its inaugural season in 2019, does not have the history "holding us back" from trying to be innovative and left them more willing to test the daylight offside rule in partnership with FIFA.
"We see it as a way to be collaborative with them," said Smyrniotis. "It's their trial, but ultimately we'd like entertaining football — entertaining football means people are paying attention to our clubs, people are attending our matches, they're enjoying CPL football, which is normally attractive, good scoring games, good entertainment and good quality.
"We're hopeful that by participating in such a trial, where the hope is to only enhance that, that'll be the outcome going forward, and we've been a good partner in doing so."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Ken Ferris)
