{"id":16570,"date":"2023-08-31T11:27:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T11:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/?page_id=16570"},"modified":"2023-09-27T22:02:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T22:02:48","slug":"wasteoftime","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wasteoftime\/","title":{"rendered":"What A Waste … Of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big issue in the game at the moment (well, one of them) is the FA’s clampdown on players time-wasting to ensure that there is more playing
\ntime in matches. Here, Benny The Ball looks at the time-consuming matter …<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
.<\/span><\/td>\n.<\/span><\/td>\n.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
.<\/span><\/td>\nI don’t know if I am wasting my time writing this article, but with match officials seemingly unable to perform the simple task of counting to six, perhaps I am.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me quote parts of IFAB Laws of the Game 2023-2024; Law 12, sub-section 2 …<\/span><\/p>\n

“An indirect free kick is awarded if a goalkeeper, inside their penalty area, commits any of the following offences:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • controls the ball with the hand\/arm for more than six seconds before releasing it.<\/span>“.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    A goalkeeper is considered to be in control of the ball with the hand(s) when:<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • the ball is between the hands or between the hand and any surface (e.g. ground, own body) or by touching it with any part of the hands or arms except if the ball rebounds from the goalkeeper or the goalkeeper has made a save.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • holding the ball in the outstretched open hand.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • bouncing it on the ground or throwing it in the air.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      A goalkeeper cannot be challenged by an opponent when in control of the ball with the hand(s).”<\/span><\/p>\n

      Fairly straightforward you would think, but this part of the Laws of the Game has not been invoked for goodness knows how long.\u00a0 I\u00a0 <\/span>can’t remember the last time I saw\u00a0<\/span> an indirect free-kick award for a goalkeeper taking too long to dispose of the ball.\u00a0 This is despite some holding <\/span>onto it for about 10 seconds.\u00a0 Some clubs make a dark artform of this tactic, with Joe Hart’s performance for Burnley against us at Wembley and any by Kasper Schmeichel and Jordan Pickford being prime examples.\u00a0 And Pickford is a particular protagonist of the flop with the ball for no apparent reason.\u00a0 But why is this fooling referees (not a difficult task I realise) ?<\/span><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Jordan Pickford pictured in his favoured position<\/span><\/p>\n

      Looking at the wording of Law 12 (2), the six second starts when the goalkeeper has the ball under control.\u00a0 That is when the goalkeeper has the ball between his hands, so taking a cross in the air means when he grabs the ball at it’s highest point (as that is what goalkeepers are supposed to do).\u00a0 So the countdown doesn’t start after he has thrown himself to the floor and been patted on the back by his team-mates before deciding to get up to his feet.\u00a0 It may only be a matter of seconds, but multiplied by the many times he is called upon to handle the ball, it all adds up.<\/span><\/p>\n

      It would not be beyond the wit of man for the fourth official to count six and then let the referee know when he has done it.\u00a0 At the time that the keeper has the ball, there should be little need for the reserve official to separate warring managers or preparing the substitutes board, as that could wait.\u00a0 And that is another thing where the game could be speeded up, with fourth officials constantly confounded by the workings of the subs board, having to punch in two numbers in the appropriate displays quite often taking an inordinate amount of time to perform.<\/span><\/p>\n

      One of the bug bears involving time-wasting is the lack of readiness to restart play following a substitution, VAR check or sending off.\u00a0 \u00a0This also encompasses the immense of time it takes to celebrate a goal and return to positions to re-start the match, often extending to 1-2 minutes.\u00a0 Later in Law 12 which goes on to cover what would constitute a bookable offence, there is a section headed Delaying The Restart Of Play”.\u00a0 This is what referees are able to flash the yellow card for …<\/span><\/p>\n

      “Referees must caution players who delay the restart of play by:<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      • appearing to take a throw-in but suddenly leaving it to a team-mate to take<\/span><\/li>\n
      • delaying leaving the field of play when being substituted<\/span><\/li>\n
      • excessively delaying a restart<\/span><\/li>\n
      • kicking or carrying the ball away, or provoking a confrontation by deliberately touching the ball after the referee has stopped play<\/span><\/li>\n
      • taking a free kick from the wrong position to force a retake.”<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        The interesting word in the above quoted paragraph is “must”.\u00a0 It is not optional, but mandatory.\u00a0 “Referees must<\/span><\/strong> caution players …”.\u00a0 Yes, we sometimes see it for kicking the ball away, especially under the new season’s new interpretation, but this has been in the Laws for some time without always being enforced.\u00a0 Further up the text for this Law, under “Cautions For Unsporting Behaviour”, it states that it is a yellow card offence for a player who “shows lack of respect for the game”.\u00a0 Now, I think most of you can think of players who this applies to on a regular basis.\u00a0 And surely, it must relate to players who time-waste, as it is contrary to the old UEFA slogan of “Get On With The Game”.\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

        We have seen a rise in the number of bookings for not getting on with the game, although most goalkeepers only get booked in the 86th minute for time-wasting.\u00a0 A BBC article said that there has been a increase in playing time of three minutes and 23 seconds on average with the games lasting an average of 101 minutes 49 seconds.\u00a0 It didn’t say how much of that time the ball was actually in play, with a lot of time taken over set-pieces<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n


        \nEric Dier waits patiently while the referee sorts out the wall at this free-kick.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

        It is a shame that referees aren’t allowed to use their discretion on time-wasting.\u00a0 MEHSTG has previously advocated that a tally of time-wasting by each side be kept during the game, which is surely possible with all the technology available on match stats these days, so that at the end of the regulation 90 minutes, the team who time-wasted the least get the opportunity to choose as to whether or not they want the time for stoppages by their opponents added on.\u00a0 Now if that team is losing, they will probably opt for the additional time, while if they are ahead wouldn’t.\u00a0 Teams who are leading in games would tend to take more time over restarts, so this might sharpen their thinking into hurrying up.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Also, referees should be given the power to issue yellow cards for players who have been acting like a sloth until they are suddenly behind in a match, so then sprint everywhere to speed up the match.\u00a0 This could realistically fall under the category of “shows lack of respect for the game.”\u00a0 Again, Hart’s embarrassing scurrying around to take a goal-kick in the added minutes after Christian Eriksen had scored a 90th minute goal for Tottenham comes to mind.\u00a0 It was like his earlier snail-like taking of goal-kicks was then being played back at normal speed.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \"\"The current tactic that we see quite regularly is for goalkeepers to line-up a goal-kick with his defenders inside their own penalty box, only to then wave them forward and hoof the ball up-field.\u00a0 To me, this doesn’t seem like they suddenly realise that all avenues have been closed off to them to play it out from the back, but rather they have spent a considerable amount of time working on this in training to eek out a few more vital seconds that doesn’t threaten their goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

        At the end of August UEFA’s Chief of Football (which sounds like a grandiose title that UEFA would come up with) Zvonimir Boban moaned about the amount of time that was added on in the 2022 World Cup and in the Premier League.\u00a0 His comments were a little shocking, but not unexpected, but they did contain some elements of interest.<\/span><\/p>\n

        The former Croatian player dramatically stated that, “regarding player welfare, it’s some kind of big tragedy because [they] are adding 12,13, 14 minutes.”\u00a0 I appreciate that playing football at the highest level is not like most other jobs, but being asked to stay on at work for an extra fifteen minutes is probably something that a lot of employees have been asked to do.\u00a0 And that is without being paid a five figure a week salary (at the very least).\u00a0 What he seems not to be able to grasp is that people are paying good money to watch players play a football match.\u00a0 He is ignoring that fact that when players are time-wasting, they are not playing.\u00a0 They are doing the football equivalent of clock watching, albeit with the purpose of preventing the other team getting on with the game.\u00a0 There is no noticeable effort that goes into delaying the play, unless the players then get involved in a melee because the referee hasn’t handled the situation properly.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

        He went on to complain that as a midfielder, when he had played 65 minutes, he was tired in the last 30 minutes of the game, so to add another 15 minutes was absurd.\u00a0 As far as I am aware, matches have usually lasted about 90 minutes since the beginning of the sport and as it has developed, the length of the game has been pretty standard (apart from efforts by the USA to change it to thirds or quarters with shorter playing time and more advertising breaks), although the physical demands are slightly different now to matches in the 1880s.\u00a0 However, to compensate for that, players usually do not have to play with a ball that weighs about a ton, pitches that horses might have ploughed up before kick off and boots that are made out of the most rigid material known to man and held together by steel nails.\u00a0 Lightweight footballs, kits and boots, along with immaculate playing surfaces mean that the toll taken on players compared with their contemporaries of the 19th Century is less debilitating, along with all the sports science and nutritional advice available to modern footballers.<\/span><\/p>\n

        “How often we have spoken critically about the calendar and too many games”, he continued.\u00a0 Well, UEFA are the supreme money-making machine in manufacturing trophies and competitions to being in the moolah.\u00a0 The European Super-Cup; The Nations League, reducing the number of European competitions, only to then increase it back to three.\u00a0 Look at yourself in the mirror Boban and then come back and do something about the number of games players are involved in if you are really concerned about player welfare.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Players are getting upset at receiving more yellow cards for time-wasting and not having to play anywhere near 90 minutes, because they have been getting away with it for so long.\u00a0 To answer Boban’s point, if he doesn’t want players to have to play 105 minutes, then why don’t they just get on with it and play the full 90 instead !<\/span><\/td>\n

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<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nFurther to the above, this article was found commenting on the practice of clamping down on time-wasting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An ironic quote coming from a Chelsea chairman, but this wasn’t this season … it was from the Wolverhampton Wanders v Spurs programme of 19th September 1962 !\u00a0 Seems like some things never change.<\/span><\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big issue in the game at the moment (well, one of them) is the FA’s clampdown on players time-wasting to ensure that there is more playing time in matches. Here, Benny The Ball looks at the time-consuming matter … . . . . I don’t know if I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16570","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16570"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16602,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16570\/revisions\/16602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}