The Canadian Premier League (CPL) is going to trial Arsene Wenger’s “daylight” offside rule when its new season gets underway on April 4, FIFA has confirmed.

In another change to the CPL ahead of the upcoming campaign, head coaches will also be able to challenge decisions that are made on the pitch by brandishing a review card. The Athletic reported in February that the Canada trial of the rule was being discussed and would be accepted pending ratification.

Wenger, the chief of global football development at FIFA, has been pushing a new offside law that means as long as there is no visible gap — or daylight — between the attacker and the last defender, then the forward player will be onside.

And it has now been confirmed that the CPL — in cooperation with FIFA and confirmed by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), football’s lawmakers — will become the first professional league to implement the new regulations that are designed to favor attacking play.

“This is an important pilot,” Wenger said via a FIFA press release. “By testing this new interpretation in a professional competition, we can better understand its impact, including in terms of improving clarity and the flow of the game and promoting attacking play. We look forward to analysing the results of the trial phase.”

Wenger also thanked the CPL and Canadian Soccer Association “for their willingness to support FIFA” and for “providing their competition” to be the law’s guinea pig after it had previously been limited to youth football.

Under the CPL’s new offside rule, the attacking player will be considered onside so long as one part of their body that can be used to score — ruling out their hands and arms — is in line with, or behind, the second-to-last defender.

This means that the attacking player will only be ruled offside if there is “daylight” between themselves and the defender.

“By introducing a clearer visual threshold, the trial is aimed at restoring a greater attacking advantage and boosting the flow of matches,” the FIFA statement read.

As part of the trial. the CPL is also going to implement Football Video Support (FVS), which is a video replay system to review key officiating calls that requires head coaches to give a card to the fourth official. Unlike the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system, the FVS does not use dedicated video match officials, meaning it does not automatically review match-altering moments.

But under the rollout in the CPL, the head coaches will be able to make a “limited number” of review requests per match “when they feel there as been a clear and obvious error in match-changing incidents”. These include goal/no goal incidents, penalty/no penalty decisions, direct red cards or mistaken identity. such as goal/no goal, penalty/no penalty, direct red cards or mistaken identity.

According to FIFA, the head coach must issue give the card to the fourth official “immediately after the relevant incident to avoid unnecessary delays.”

Forge will play Ottawa at home on April 4 to begin the new CPL season.