EURO 2024 is just around the corner as football fans flock in their thousands to Germany for the highly-anticipated tournament.
The action gets underway on Friday when Scotland face hosts Germany in Munich, while England start their campaign with a Group C clash against Serbia on Sunday.
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The action never fails to disappoint at major tournaments and supporters can expect to be thoroughly entertained over the next month.
However, the travelling fans will be hoping that their experience won’t be tainted by the officiating – as it so often is in the Premier League.
Referees have been cherry picked from around the continent to ensure the best of the best are taking charge of the games at Euro 2024.
But they and the players will have to be clued up on some new rules ahead of the tournament.
Here SunSport breaks down what may look different out in Germany this summer.
Long stoppage times
Fans can say goodbye to long stoppage times.
Euros officials will not use the same stoppage time rules that were used in the 2022 World Cup and the Premier League.
Meaning that it is likely to see old average stoppage times of 3-5 minutes added at the end of each match.
VAR
Premier League fans know just how infuriating VAR can be, but on an international level it is largely used well.
VAR will be in operation for every game of the tournament this summer and the officials will be operating out of technologies hub in Leipzig.
Each game will be assigned one Video Assistant Referee and two assistants VAR’s – that’s one less than the three assistants that were employed for each game at Euro 2020.
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This will hopefully lead to less complicated VAR reviews and speed up the process of decision making.
Uefa’s regulations state that they will also use the big screens inside stadiums to show VAR replays and display decisions to fans.
VAR will intervene for clear and obvious errors relating to goals, penalty incidents, red cards and mistaken identity.
Semi-automated offsides
Football fans will be pleased to know that there won’t be any meticulous line drawing by the VAR this summer.
Instead Uefa will be using semi-automated offside thanks to Connected Ball Technology inside the balls at the tournament.
The tech will immediately identify the point of ball contact and assess the offside thanks to ten specialised cameras monitoring 29 different body points on the players.
Semi-automated offsides were successfully used in the 2022 Qatar World Cup and are already used in the Champions League.
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Surrounding referees
A new rule being introduced at the tournament will aim to prevent players from crowding the referee in order to plead their case regarding a decision.
Uefa have announced that any player surrounding the officials will be booked, stating that only the captain can discuss decisions made on the pitch with the referee.
The only exception to the rule will be teams who field their goalkeeper as their captain.
In that instance a teammate can be nominated to approach the ref.
Squad sizes
Another change to the rules has already been made.
Uefa have allowed teams to take 26-man squads instead of the usual 23-strong selections.
The expanded squad size means more firepower for the nations stacked with talent.
Microchipped balls
The Euro 2024 balls will now have microchips in them.
This has been done to help referees detect when the ball has been touched for handball decisions.
