The Qatar World Cup will be remembered as the tournament which finally saw Lionel Messi get his hands on the trophy – but the amount of stoppage time in matches was also one of its biggest talking points.
The tournament produced some of the longest World Cup games on record after Fifa instructed fourth officials to keep track of time lost, and we could be about to see the trend rolled out to all top domestic leagues from next season.
The Qatar World Cup will be remembered as the tournament which finally saw Lionel Messi get his hands on the trophy – but the amount of stoppage time in matches was also one of its biggest talking points.
The tournament produced some of the longest World Cup games on record after Fifa instructed fourth officials to keep track of time lost, and we could be about to see the trend rolled out to all top domestic leagues from next season.
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In January the International Football Association Board (Ifab) met in London. Ifab oversees the laws of the game and how they are administered, and its wish is to “create fairer conditions for both teams in terms of the amount of time available in a match”.
A change in the guidelines – rather than the laws – regards actual playing time is expected to be ratified at the Ifab’s annual general meeting on Saturday. But could it change the future of football forever?
Sixty-minute matches?
Despite being a 90-minute sport, the amount of football played in a match falls a long way short of 90 minutes. Stoppage time was introduced in 1891 to allow officials to add on more time to compensate for unusual breaks in play.
Originally these were for long injury stoppages, but in recent years the added time took into account multiple substitutions, video assistant referee checks, elongated celebrations and deliberate time-wasting.
But two problems remain – only the referee knows when a match will end, and matches have differing durations of the ball being in play.
To combat this a number of high-profile figures – including Netherlands legend Marco van Basten, ex-Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg and former Arsenal chief David Dein – have suggested football becomes a 60-minute sport, with the clock stopping every time the ball is out of play.
This might suggest that less football would be played, but many matches see the ball in play for much less than 60 minutes. Playing time at the 2018 World Cup in Russia was between just 52 and 58 minutes.
A stop-clock is such a radical change that it is unlikely to be introduced in the near future, but the 2022 Qatar World Cup showcased ways in which more playing time could be allowed. Much more was added at the end of each half.
In January the International Football Association Board (Ifab) met in London. Ifab oversees the laws of the game and how they are administered, and its wish is to “create fairer conditions for both teams in terms of the amount of time available in a match”.
A change in the guidelines – rather than the laws – regards actual playing time is expected to be ratified at the Ifab’s annual general meeting on Saturday. But could it change the future of football forever?
Sixty-minute matches?
Despite being a 90-minute sport, the amount of football played in a match falls a long way short of 90 minutes. Stoppage time was introduced in 1891 to allow officials to add on more time to compensate for unusual breaks in play.
Originally these were for long injury stoppages, but in recent years the added time took into account multiple substitutions, video assistant referee checks, elongated celebrations and deliberate time-wasting.
But two problems remain – only the referee knows when a match will end, and matches have differing durations of the ball being in play.
To combat this a number of high-profile figures – including Netherlands legend Marco van Basten, ex-Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg and former Arsenal chief David Dein – have suggested football becomes a 60-minute sport, with the clock stopping every time the ball is out of play.
This might suggest that less football would be played, but many matches see the ball in play for much less than 60 minutes. Playing time at the 2018 World Cup in Russia was between just 52 and 58 minutes.
A stop-clock is such a radical change that it is unlikely to be introduced in the near future, but the 2022 Qatar World Cup showcased ways in which more playing time could be allowed. Much more was added at the end of each half.
How much time was added at Qatar 2022?
The first round of group games saw an average of 11 minutes eight seconds indicated as added time – four minutes in the first half and seven in the second. These figures, though only having a small sample size, slowly dropped as the tournament progressed
Source – BBC Sport
