Time-wasting is a problem in football and nobody would deny it. The extent to which
it’s affecting the game is quite shocking, though. According to research conducted by The
CIES Football Observatory across 36 different leagues since 2019, the average ball-in-play
time was just below 60 minutes. So, what’s to be done about that,
if anything at all, and how far should football go in attacking this blight on the game?
First, more of that research. According to the same study, the ball spent the longest time in
play in the Dutch Eredivisie, over 63 minutes, and the least in the German 2.Bundesliga,
just under 59 minutes. Currently, the Premier League’s average – as of February 2022 – was 60
minutes and 59 seconds. Not the worst, but still a stark reminder of how much time is being lost.
And that figure is only an average. In some extreme cases, it’s much lower. In 2018,
during a now notorious game between Cardiff City and Burnley, the ball was in play for just 42
minutes and 2 seconds and that took place a season after the International Football
Association Board – or IFAB – released is Play Fair! document which, among other aims,
sought to increase playing time and “the fairness and attractiveness” of the game.
That was in 2017. In 2018, while still considering law changes to
increase the amount of actual football being played, an IFAB source told The Times that:
“We all want to crack down on major time-wasting and increase playing time
but the fundamental question is how we do it”.
Football has made little progress on this front in the years since and with most leagues having
adopted or being on the verge of adopting new laws permitting up to five substitutions in a game and
with VAR implementation an imprecise science, the amount of time lost only seems likely to increase.
What’s to be done, then?
Well, one of the most frequently referenced plans involves a stopping clock, as seen
in the two codes of rugby, American Football, Basketball and Ice Hockey.
As in those other sports, that would mean that time would only run when the ball was in play
and would be stopped for throw-ins, goal-kicks, injuries and substitutions.
It would be effective. During that Cardiff-Burnley game in 2018, according to British journalist
Martyn Ziegler, defender Sean Morrison took 20 throw-ins at an average of 25 seconds each. In
that instance, a stopping clock would have saved over eight minutes of playing time.
Now, whether an extra eight minutes of watching those Cardiff and Burnley teams would have been
welcome is another matter, but there is a serious point to be made about the cost of live football
and ensuring that paying supporters are actually getting value for their money.
The cheapest adult ticket price at the Cardiff City Stadium during 2018-19 was £25,
meaning that anyone who watched Morrison spend 8.9% of the game
taking throw-ins paid £2.23 for the privilege. With a more expensive match ticket – one costing
£50 for example – the problem is shown more vividly. The CIES Football Observatory’s research
calculates that 29 minutes and 1 second of every Premier League game, on average,
involves the ball not being in play – 32.3% - and that, by definition,
the buyer of our £50 ticket is spending £16.15 to watch goalkeepers labour over restarts,
substituted players trundle off the pitch, and long-throw practitioners towelling-off footballs.
Football is very aware of its time-wasting problem, but also of its value as a spectacle
and its need to attract future generations by minimising delays or breaks in action. Part of
its moral panic is derived from assumptions made about shortening attention spans, but its other,
more rational fear appears to stem from FIFA’s popularity, with its six-minute halves, and
also the need to compete with other entertainment platforms, on social media and streaming services.
In addition to which, other sports leagues have initiated or at least discussed initiatives
to shorten games or reduce dead-time. The NFL’s reduction on the time limit for replay
reviews in 2005, for instance, the regular conversation about pitch clocks in baseball,
or the recent addition to a shot-clock for drop-outs and scrums in the Australian NRL.
Everywhere, sports are trying to make themselves quicker.
Since 2018, there’s been no real movement towards a rugby-style stopping clock
in football – not from IFAB at least. In the first quarter of 2022, however, the Portuguese
Football Federation expressed its interest in trialling a new format of the game, which would
comprise two halves of 30 minutes but feature a live clock, at an U23 tournament in April.
According to the I Paper’s Sam Cunningham, the trial’s running would then be followed
a university study that would “analyse the data and produce a detailed report on the findings,
taking in views of officials, coaches, players and fans who are part of the matches.”
That would be a very small step and IFAB would need to give its approval before
any official trials took place. Nevertheless, Pierlugi Collina, the famed former referee who
is now an IFAB member, gave an April 2022 interview to Calciatori Brutti,
in which he discussed the loss of time from a spectator’s point of view, the value for
money aspect, and also the need for referees to be more liberal in allocating stoppage time.
“If we’re going to be a bit more precise we’ll have to prepare ourselves
for a nine-minute injury time”, Collina said, “today nine minutes is eye-popping,
but (it would) give those who want to see a spectacle the chance to see a bit more.”
Collina stopped well short of discussing major reform,
but his comments suggest an appetite for change among football’s lawmakers.
A few days after that interview was published, veteran Belgian defender
Jan Vertonghen also weighed in with a tweet imploring FIFA to consider the innovation:
“Football really really needs to change to effective playing time ASAP!!” Vertonghen
wrote. “The teams taking advantage of constantly diving and crying (are) taking
all the joy away from the fans who want to watch a good football game and not a theatre play!"
No doubt there’s enthusiasm from supporters too,
with complaints about time-wasting and VAR delays now part of every matchday,
but whether that extends to the kind of revolution being proposed in Portugal is another matter.