Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has proposed a number of changes to the rules of football, or soccer, following the conclusion of the FIFA World Cup.
Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the final Sunday, bringing to an end a wildly popular tournament that was jointly hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico.
There were several on-field controversies in the game, including a disallowed goal for Spain’s Nico Williams that was ruled out due to an earlier foul by Mikel Merino, who was judged to have stepped on the foot of Argentine defender Nicolás Otamendi.
Speaking on talk show Wake Up Barstool, Portnoy argued that the fact Spain did go on to win the game “avoided a near-international incident.”
He continued: “That goal that they called back against Spain was an awful call. That was a brutal call. That was a goal. I know that they’re going to show the super-replay of the guy stepping on the other guy’s foot, and there are a lot of things that we’ve talked about on this panel — I loved the tournament — that we have to fix.”
Portnoy argued that after his proposed rule changes, the goal by Williams would have stood.
“If you let us get our hands on this game and really Americanize it… If you accidentally step on a guy’s foot, that’s not a flag,” said the 49-year-old. “It’s not a penalty. It’s not a flag in the NFL if you accidentally bump into each other. So you’ve got to pick that up. That should have been a goal. Thankfully we didn’t have to worry about it.”
Portnoy also said he would change the offside rule to make it more lenient.
“You’ve got to change this, clearly,” he argued. “It’s got to be that your entire body has to be ahead, not one tiny body part.”
This amended version of the offside rule is similar to a change proposed by former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, which aims to encourage more attacking football by deeming an attacker onside if any part of their body capable of scoring is level with the second-last defender.
Known as the “daylight rule”, the new version is being trialled in Canada.
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The 2026 World Cup already featured several changes that were described as “Americanization” by critics, including hydration breaks which effectively divided the game into four quarters and a 27-minute-long Super Bowl-style halftime show for the final that divided fans.
