Ex-Premier League referee lambasts Liverpool coach as ‘illegal’ claim issued
Keith Hackett has hit back at Liverpool coach Thomas Gronnemark after he claimed replacing throw-ins with kick-ins would make the game more “boring”.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the ex-Fifa and Premier League referee insisted it is worth experimenting with kick-ins to see the effect it has.
Gronnemark, a specialist throw-in coach, told Sky Sports on Tuesday (14 June) that it would be the “biggest mistake”.
IFAB discussed the idea at their annual general meeting in Doha on Monday but there are currently no plans for a formal trial.
As relayed by Dutch News earlier this month (8 June) the Dutch football association’s amateur football chief wants to launch an experiment in the lower professional leagues.
“It will make him [Gronnemark] redundant so that’s his opinion that I disagree with,” Hackett told Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.
“At the moment, I see a lot of illegal throw-ins, one-handed throws, throw-ins not taken from within a reasonable distance that the ball went out and I’ve also seen players go down the touchline to delay and absorb time. The law covers that but it’s never applied.
“For me, as the Dutch are suggesting they want to experiment with it in division two and I think they should. It’s an experiment that is worthy of us considering.
“We don’t have throw-ins in five-a-side football. This is like having a free kick or a set piece.
“It sounds a good idea to me. We have to recognise that there are a lot of people in football who don’t like law changes.
“This might be driven by people who like Arsene Wenger who is saying ‘What ways can we improve the game?'”
In other news, Mohamed Salah and Liverpool are expected to ‘compromise’ on a long-term deal after a journalist’s new update.