FIFA has announced it is planning a "comprehensive revision of the Laws of the Game in terms of structure, layout, terminology, phrasing and consistency".

To that end, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) will this month discuss a range of proposed innovations including trialling video replays for the first time.

FIFA says the Board will also discuss the merits of sin-bins, allowing temporary substitutions for injuries that require "momentary treatment," and a fourth substitute in extra time.

The discussions could lead to rule changes at the main annual IFAB meeting in March, where there has now been a "strong recommendation" put forward in favour of introducing video assistance for referees, although not until the latter half of 2018 at the earliest.

Last year the IFAB ruled out allowing referees to test such technology..

But FIFA now maintains: "IFAB has been working on potential scenarios and clear protocols for how it could be tested, with the idea that well-run experiments would be the best way to understand the pros and cons of video assistance."

In the meantime officials from the Football Association and Scottish FA have agreed in principle trial the new technology in their respective Cup competitions next season.

Use would be restricted to decisions on goals, red cards, penalties and cases of mistaken identity.

The only technology currently allowed is a system determining whether the ball has crossed the line – something that was strongly resisted for many years within FIFA.

As the wider sporting world awaits a newer, cleaner FIFA in terms of governance, there will be a sharpened sense of expectancy over the seriousness with which the latest rule recommendations are considered – or implemented.

In the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, FIFA came under increasing pressure to install technology that was already established in sports such as Major League Baseball, to judge home runs, NHL ice hockey, to judge if the puck crossed the line, and basketball, with the NBA using a re-wind to check whether a “buzzer beater” shot made it in time. Plus of course there was tennis, which – despite the disdain of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal – was employing Hawk-Eye technology to check whether balls landed in or out.

Rugby Union had already been using even more extensive video technology since 2001, offering officials in the stands – Television Match Officials (TMOs) – the opportunity to review not just the legality of tries, but also kicks at goal and acts of foul play.

In March 2008, however, IFAB halted the trajectory towards change by ruling out using cameras to rule on disputed goals, suggesting instead the addition of two referees’ assistants behind the goals.

FIFA’s secretary general Jerome Valcke said there were fears the advance of goal-line technology would lead to its extensive use.

Meanwhile, FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the Welsh Football Association (WFA) opposed the use of video replays.

"It's a game played by human beings, a game with a human face," WFA secretary general David Collins said. "There is a feeling it would hinder the flow of the game."

Blatter said the decision was made to "maintain the game's universality."

"We have 260 million people directly involved in the game," he said. "Other sports regularly change the laws of the game to react to the new technology. We don't do it and this makes the fascination and the popularity of football."

Blatter said the proposed technology was flawed and vulnerable to weather conditions.

"Let it be as it is and let's leave [soccer] with errors," Blatter said. "The television companies will have the right to say [the referee] was right or wrong, but still the referee makes the decision –  a man, not a machine."

Fast forward, as it were, to the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, where, with England 2-1 down in their World Cup round-of-16 match against Germany, Frank Lampard’s shot beat goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced down several feet behind the line – only for the referee to play on.

The next day, Blatter told a media briefing in Johannesburg: "It is obvious that after the experience so far in this World Cup it would be a nonsense to not reopen the file of technology at the business meeting of the International FA Board in July."

But he added: "The only principle we are going to bring back for discussion is goal-line technology.”

Four years later that technology was in place during the World Cup finals in Brazil, involving 14 cameras located around the pitch and directed at both goals. The new option proved decisive in confirming that Bryan Ruiz’s header, which bounced down from the underside of the Italian crossbar during their group match, had crossed the line, giving Costa Rica a 1-0 win.

A subsequent FIFA release added: “In addition, spectators in the stadium and watching on TV were also able to witness the benefits of the technology as replays of critical incidents were shown to give visual confirmation of the goal or no goal situation on seven further occasions.”

So are we about to witness a similar volte-face from FIFA over the next logical technological step? Or will there be another conservative reaction to the imminent change?

The effectiveness of technological replays is not at the centre of the debate. For instance, a study conducted during the English Premier League during the 2010-11 season suggested that “errors took place nearly 30 per cent of the time that video replays could help prevent”.

The opposition to further change resides in feelings, fears, instincts – that a game which is intrinsically more fluid than rugby, tennis, baseball, basketball, indeed virtually any other sport, will be fatally compromised by delays.

Another strong feature of resistance has been the prohibitive cost of installing such technology – prohibitive that is to all but the elite competitions.

In April 2013, the Commissioner of Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States, Don Garber, confirmed that MLS would not adopt goal-line technology for the 2014 season, citing cost as the overriding factor. He reckoned installation of the GoalControl system – as used in the FIFA World Cup finals the following year –  would cost about $260,000 (£179,000/€238,000) per stadium, and a further $3,900 (£2,600/€3,600) for each game.

In early 2014, the vast majority of teams in the two divisions of the German Bundesliga voted against introducing goal-line technology for financial reasons. The costs per club would have ranged from €250,000 (£188,000/$273,000) for a chip inside the ball and up to €500,000 (£376,000/$546,000) for Hawk-Eye or GoalControl.

The manager of FC Cologne, Jorg Schmadtke, commented: "The cost is so exorbitant, that using this is not acceptable."

These two objections remain in the face of further extension of video technology within the game. As does the feeling voiced by Blatter in 2008 that the “errors” thrown up by football will continue to stimulate vital debate and argument between football followers in pubs and bars.

Such a stance appears to be nodding towards history, towards a version of the game that has amply sufficed down the years.

Yet history shows us that the laws of football have been subject to constant change ever since they were first formulated by the Football Association in a cramped London pub – the Freemasons’ Tavern at Blackheath – in 1863.

One club represented refused to accept the non-inclusion of hacking, kicking below the knee, and subsequently became a founder of the Rugby Football Union. However, the 11 others reached an agreement.

And ever since, as with the decision over goal-line technology, the game has been reactive.

The decision to install an on-field referee was taken in response to the situation which prevailed in the 1870s when, according to a report by the Sportsman paper, players were wont to make “vexatious and unmeaning calls [for fouls]…on the most frivolous pretexts.”

As FIFA’s own site eloquently explains: “In the public schools where modern football originated, there was an assumption that a gentleman would never deliberately commit a foul. Amid the increased competitiveness, however, the penalty, or as it was originally called 'the kick of death', was introduced as one of a number of dramatic changes to the Laws of the Game in 1891.

“Penalties, of course, had to be awarded by someone and following a proposal from the Irish Association, the referee was allowed on to the field of play. True to its gentlemanly beginnings, disputes were originally settled by the two team captains, but, as the stakes grew, so did the number of complaints.”

Another profound, reactive change occurred in 1925. The offside rule established in 1866, in which “at least three” opponents had to be between the foremost attacker and goal when he received the ball, had been employed with crushing efficiency by a Newcastle United defence marshalled by veteran Northern Ireland international centre half Billy McCracken.

As a result the wording was changed to “two defenders” – and the number of goals scored in the English leagues rose in one season from 4,700 to 6,373.

Other landmark reactive changes included the redrafting of the rule about passing back to the keeper after the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy, where such cautious play contributed to a record low of 2.21 goals per game.

Concern about how increased video technology would alter the feel and flow of the game is probably the most valid element of the resistance being offered.

The obvious comparison is with rugby union, which has broadly – but by no means wholeheartedly – embraced the Brave New World of the TMO.

As anecdotal evidence of that ambivalence, one might consider the divergence in opinion evidenced by rugby writers from The Guardian who were asked to offer their judgments on a range of issues following the 2015 Rugby World Cup finals.

On the topic of “One thing I would change for 2019”, Mike Averis concluded: “Get the refs to stand up to their TMOs. The standard of refereeing was fine, but a few more should tell the man in their ear where to go.”

Whereas his colleague, Owen Gibson, took a different line: “Referees should be allowed to consult TMO if they deem it necessary at any time in exceptional circumstances [such as, for example, the last minute of a World Cup quarter-final].”

This was a reference to the controversial climax of the match between Australia and Scotland, where Australia won 35-34 thanks to a last minute penalty awarded for a deliberate offside by South African referee Craig Joubert – who compounded the sense of Scottish outrage by running from the pitch at the end of the match.

Joubert penalised Scotland for deliberate offside, although replays seemed to prove his call was wrong, as the ball had come off an Australian rather than a Scottish player.

Such an incident can be avoided in future by altering the scope and wording of the rules. But there remains questioning within the game not only of the amount of time certain decisions have taken, but also the frequency with which referees turn to the TMOs. Some favour a restriction of video usage…

That said, those who insist the flow of football will be crucially damaged by an increase in video judgements must face the fact that most matches involve the ball being in play for little more than an hour of the allotted 90 minutes.

Discussion within IFAB over sin-bins, temporary substitutions and extra-time substitutions should prove less exacting, although the first of these would appear too complex to be swiftly introduced.

But it is the slow-burning question of how far to trust readily available video technology that will most occupy those charged with balancing tradition and innovation within the game that will always want to be able to call itself Beautiful….