More active play with increase in added time

ADDING more time at the end of World Cup games to compensate for stoppages has raised the average active playing time to 59 minutes, FIFA’S head of refereeing said Wednesday.

Pierluigi Collina said FIFA was “quite happy (with) the result” of games routinely extending from the 90 minutes of regulation to more than 100 in total.

The ball is now actively in play for 55 to 67 minutes, the Italian said.

Active playing time was as little as 52 minutes for some games at the 2018 World Cup when video review of referees’ decisions debuted and some reviews took more than two minutes.

“People are here to watch matches and be entertained,” Collina said in an interview filmed and distributed by FIFA. “It’s like a concert - you are happy and ask for an encore of the singer.”

FIFA’S directive to referees was a surprise trend early in the tournament in Qatar with more time added to take account of goal celebrations.

“It takes quite long to celebrate a goal and for opponents, it’s less opportunity to play,’ said Collina, who worked at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups when referees routinely added about four extra minutes to games.

FIFA also wanted referees to add at least one minute for an injury delay and 30 seconds for each pause to make a substitution.

The averaged added time was more than 10 minutes as of Monday.

The average has also been skewed by the second game of the tournament when England beat Iran 6-2. More than 27 minutes were added because of injures including a concussion sustained by the Iranian goalkeeper, a video review to award a penalty and eight goals scored.

In 2018 in Russia, stoppage time averaged 6½ minutes.