The
amount of football being played in the Premier League has hit an all-time
low.
The league considered the world's best top-flight competition is seeing more
time lost to slow restarts, delaying tactics and time-consuming injuries
than ever, and officials are struggling to keep up with time-wasting.
New Premier League referees chief Howard Webb believes it is the most
discussed issue in the game outside of VAR - but is reluctant to follow the
lead of last month's World Cup to address what has become a long-term issue.
At an average Premier League game this season, the ball has been in play for
less than 56 per cent of the match. That figure has been falling
consistently over the past 10 years and with 2022/23 the lowest on record.
Frustrations had set in even before that slide, to the point then-Manchester
United manager Sir Alex Ferguson suggested taking timekeeping out of the
hands of referees as far back as 2012.
Although he was protecting his own side's interests, the sentiment was and
remains widely shared. A number of managers and executives have already
complained to the media this season, as well as to the Premier League
referees' body (PGMOL).
Sky Sports analysis has found that in 23 games this season, Premier League
fans have sat through matches where the ball was out of play for more than
half of the playing time.
Crystal Palace vs Leeds in October had the least football played, with the
ball in play for less than 44 minutes of the almost 101-minute match.
In the first half of that game, a Palace goal triggered a VAR review lasting
almost two minutes, and later a clash of heads led to a stoppage of five
minutes and 45 seconds. Only five minutes were added on by the referee
before half-time.
Leeds managing director Angus Kinnear called the match "an unacceptable
spread for both players and spectators" and said he would raise the issue
with the PGMOL.
Three months later, nothing has changed. In Wolves vs Manchester United on
New Year's Eve, three second-half injury stoppages amounted to more than
seven minutes, with another minute's delay for a VAR check on a disallowed
goal. Once again, five minutes were added.
The World Cup has shown how things can be improved. FIFA's referees chief
Pierluigi Collina's initiative to detail injury-time more accurately led to
the average match during last month's tournament exceeding 101 minutes.
"People want to watch football, more football," was his rationale. And it
worked. Injury-time fell by more than a quarter as teams gave up on
time-wasting, with the ball in play almost five per cent more by the end of
the tournament.
The average game, excluding extra-time, featured more than 58 minutes of
football. That is more than any of Europe's top-five leagues this season.
Jamie Carragher was among the admirers of Collina's thinking. "[I'm]
enjoying the amount of time that is being added on at the World Cup," he
tweeted. "There is too much time-wasting in football!"
PGMOL head Webb has poured cold water on the Premier League drawing on what
he has called the "unusual" methods used in Qatar and has insisted referees
already add on a "credible" amount of time.
"I'm a big advocate of ensuring that we empower referees to take action
against players who delay restarts, and those who immediately stand in front
of free-kicks to stop them from being taken," he told Sky Sports before the
Premier League's restart on Boxing Day.
But as recently as last week's draw between Arsenal and Newcastle there was
more than 10 minutes of stoppages due to injuries, substitutions and
cautions for time-wasting alone after half-time. This was another occasion
when five minutes of injury time were added.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta was visibly angry with the decision, while
colleagues Jesse Marsch and Jurgen Klopp have also hit out at what they have
described as disruptive tactics going unpunished by referees.
"This is an entertainment business and I wish the referee had handled it
better," Marsch told Sky Sports after their match against Everton only five
games into the season. "The referee had the chance to affect the game and
did not take advantage of that."
Officials have tried some new approaches. Forty yellow cards have been
handed out for time-wasting this season, a figure which is on course to
reach a Premier League high by some margin, but it has made little
difference.
The return of the multi-ball system at the start of 2022/23 was also meant
to help restart play quicker, and has been unable to arrest the decline
either.
Real change may come from above Webb and the PGMOL. IFAB, the international
body which acts as football's law maker, has discussed the problems around
playing time already this season and is due to address it again when it
meets next week.
Time-wasting is not an issue which is confined to England. In fact, three of
Europe's top-five leagues see less of the ball in play than the Premier
League and in the Scottish Premiership less than 51 minutes of football is
played during an average game - four minutes less than the Premier League.
IFAB will review the success of the more stringent approach to stoppages
from the World Cup, and address how existing laws of the game - such as a
maximum of six seconds for goalkeepers to hold on to the ball - can be more
consistently applied.
It will also discuss whether Ferguson's long-held wish, to add an external
timekeeper to the game, is a realistic possibility.
Sky Sports has observed repeated abuse of the six-second rule by goalkeepers
across the most stoppage-affected Premier League matches this season,
disrupting the flow of the game even though the ball remains in play.
In one game, the match referee made no intervention despite the same
goalkeeper holding onto the ball for more than 15 seconds on six separate
occasions.
The push to take the responsibility of added time out of referees' hands has
been a long-term campaign of former Arsenal chairman David Dein, who has
spoken to both the PGMOL and FIFA about his proposals and holds significant
sway in his role as an FA and Premier League ambassador.
"I've been championing it because the referee is the busiest man on the
pitch," he told TalkSPORT earlier this month. "If you ask any referee, they
would tell you they don't need and don't want to keep the time anymore. They
are managing a game of football. They have got too much to do.
"When we are talking about pure time, I'm not suggesting for one minute that
it should be when time is wasted at a throw-in or a corner kick. But there
are normally four or five areas of the game where time is wasted.
"Goal celebrations, injuries, substitutions, VAR checks and penalties. Now,
if you add all those up, one-and-a-half minutes here, a minute there and
another minute there, it adds up to eight, nine or 10 minutes during the
course of a game.
"I was at the World Cup and spoke to FIFA officials. I made presentations to
them and slowly but surely, I think we'll get it on the agenda."
The World Cup has helped to progress that case faster than expected to bring
the subject of time-wasting to the table, and shown how effectively it can
be handled with a consistent approach.
But when Premier League fans will start to see more of the football they
have paid to watch, without external intervention from IFAB, remains to be
seen.
Sky Sports contacted the Premier League and PGMOL for comment.
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