Exactly. Although the new rule is far from flawless, and obviously, open to individual interpretation as to what constitutes "interfering with play" it's still far better than the old rule, which would only encourage some teams to copy the above mentioned tactics - thus killing many games stone dead, as a spectacle.
Well said NSIS why anyone wants to go back to the 'bad old days' is beyond me. The growth in domestic and global popularity of football has partly been because, by abolishing the back pass to the goalie's hands and loosening the offside law, the game is now more of an attacking spectacle. Just because some old dinosaurs want a nice, simple law they can understand, it isn't really worth going back to the days of Graham's Arsenal and other game killers. I remember so many games being killed stone dead by time wasting back passes and/or high offside lines with most of the players congested in the middle third.
It might hurt their valuable viewing figures if one of the more populous nations were eliminated early on, too.
Don't know about being eliminated, but being being challenged on your own turf might upset Mr Blatter a bit.
