(openPR) - Hermosa Beach, CA – The Hermosa Beach Soccer Club (HermosaBeachSoccerClub.com) today reminded the U.S soccer community that the Federation Internationale de Football Association (“FIFA”) released in July an update to the Rules of the Game. FIFA (www.FIFA.com) is an association governed by Swiss law founded in 1904 and based in Zurich. It has 208 member associations and its goal, enshrined in its Statutes, is the constant improvement of soccer.

In the twelve years since its last major revision of the Laws of the Game, the FIFA Board has made a significant number of additions and amendments to the Laws themselves, and various accompanying publications and teaching materials have been produced and distributed by soccer‘s various governing bodies in order to assist match officials in their duties and to clarify concepts for the soccer community as a whole.

While this year’s edition of the Laws of the Game features only one amendment to the 2007/2008 edition in terms of substance, the overall wording and structure has been reviewed and revised to consolidate and reorganize the content for the sake of consistency, simplification and clarification.

Among the most notable changes in this respect, some of the Decisions of the FIFA Board from last year’s edition of the Laws of the Game are now either incorporated in the Law to which they were previously appended or appear in the section now entitled “Interpretation of the Laws of the Game and Guidelines for Referees”. With this new title, the FIFA Board wishes to underline that, while the content of this section is intended to complement the Laws of the Game themselves, its application is indeed a compulsory requirement.

In addition, certain principles that were previously implicitly understood throughout the game but did not explicitly feature in the Laws of the Game have been included in this new edition for completeness. Finally, the FIFA Board reminds the associations and confederations that it is their duty, under the FIFA Statutes, to ensure the Laws of the Game are implemented strictly and consistently at all levels of competition.

A free pdf version of FIFA’s Rules of the Games is available at www.HermosaBeachSoccerClub.com/pdf/fifarules2008.pdf.

The Hermosa Beach Soccer Club extends its gratitude to its generous 2007/2008 sponsors: Del Amo Construction (DelAmoConstruction.com), Elliott/Drinkward Construction (ElliottDrinkward.com), TomatoBank, N.A. (TomatoBank.com), Coastline Steel (CoastlineSteel.com), Quality Seafood (QualitySeafood.net), SCS Engineering Inc (SCSEngineering.com) and FFI Soccer Magazine (FFISoccer.com).

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Hermosa Beach Soccer Club
409 North Pacific Coast Highway #414
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
www.HermosaBeachSoccerClub.com

The Hermosa Beach Soccer Club (www.HermosaBeachSoccerClub.com) was founded in 2000. Located in Los Angeles’ South Bay, HBSC is home to men’s Premier, Over-30 and Over-40 teams as well as a women’s Premier team.