Time to follow steps in stopping time- wasting
ENGLAND’S incredible 6- 2 World Cup win over Iran was already a remarkable thriller of a game before it extended to 117 minutes with added time, making it the longest group- stage match ever held.
And while its length is unique to the circumstances of that game, including a serious concussion that caused an extended break in play, seeing more added time than usual has not been an unusual occurrence in Qatar. Several other matches have already extended way beyond the norm. Added time in Wales’ match with the USA saw over 10 minutes extra, as did Senegal’s defeat by the Netherlands.
The chairman of the FIFA referees committee Pierluigi Collina warned fans last week this was new dawn was coming ahead of the tournament. It’s a policy that has come off the back of the game’s governing body monitoring data that shows the time the ball is in play has been decreasing drastically in recent years.
Part of this can be put down to the introduction of VAR and more substitutes, with five now allowed instead of the traditional three, but there’s also a sense that those who look to bend the rules have finessed their negative qualities to a level that now means it needs systematic change.
Italian legend Collina, who was a formidable referee in his time, told ESPN: “We told everybody to don’t be surprised if they see the fourth official raising the electronic board with a big number on it, six, seven or eight minutes. If you want more active time, we need to be ready to see this kind of additional time given. Think of a match with three goals scored.
“A celebration normally takes one, one and a half minutes, so with three goals scored, you lose five or six minutes. What we want to do is accurately calculate the added time at the end of each half. It can be the fourth official to do that, we were successful in Russia and we expect the same in Qatar.”
It’s something Scottish football would be wise to copy going forward. As befits the David versus Goliath profile of some games in the Premiership, there can be an awful lot of time- wasting which cheats fans out of entertainment for which they pay a king’s ransom. And it’s not just in the dying embers where such naughtiness can be witnessed - as regular visitors to Ibrox will know, it’s not an unusual sight to see opposition players looking to push the acceptable margins of time taken with goal kicks and throw- ins even in the first half.
As a benchmark, numbers from Statsbomb show the ball is only in play during Champions League games for 56.35 minutes. Incredibly, the Scottish Premiership average is just 48.8.
That’s over seven minutes less of the ball being active than in Europe’s biggest tournament. It means that regular fans of the SPFL are being shortchanged and underlines why FIFA are looking to make improvements.
There are things a club like Rangers can do to accelerate these numbers of course. Rangers, and Celtic, use the multi- ball system which sees ball boys throwing a different ball immediately back into play the second it goes out. This goes some way to explain why Rangers’ number is higher than the league’s figure at 52.94. That said, it’s still significantly less than the major European leagues.
For the sake of the fans, and the quality of our product, our clubs should press the SFA to act and follow the World Cup model as soon as practically possible.
If we want to reward skill above all, if we want to be fair and honour the principles of sporting integrity, it’s essential the governing body grasp the nettle and take action to banish the dark art of time- wasting to the bygone era in which it belongs.