02 Nov 2025 15:58:10
Just reading that IFAB will be discussing time restrictions on throw ins and goal kicks in January. Like any changes, implementation needs to be consistent.
02 Nov 2025 17:34:03
About time. the stupid idiots in charge want to clamp down on time wasting. so they decide to penalize goalkeepers by only allowing them 8 seconds to hold the ball, which is a law that was already in place.
Teams make time wasting so obvious during goal kicks, corners, free kicks, throw ins, subs, etc. yet the officials choose to turn a blind eye
Like you said EM. let's hope they implement any changes consistently. Although we all know the refs are only consistent at. one thing. inconsistency.
02 Nov 2025 18:07:35
Just introduce effective time, there’ll be no time wasting.
02 Nov 2025 18:16:11
Would effective time be stopping the clock? Not a fan games will last 3 hours like American games. Just need to enforce common sense protocols like they have done w keepers. And no more towels to dry the ball.
Clear advantage. Yellow cards will work wonders to prevent time wasting and diving. Just need to be enforced and consistently. Not holding my breath on common sense coming back into the game.
02 Nov 2025 18:33:49
Red flyer that's how it works in rugby league mate. 80 minute match.
02 Nov 2025 18:42:52
I'm a big rugby league fan grew up playing it Ashy. Have to say living in the states I don't watch much of it anymore so can't speak for how they run the clock.
League is a much more honest game tho when it comes to time wasting and play acting; if they were like footballers half of them would be on the ground at any given moment.
02 Nov 2025 20:59:37
The only club that has never, ever resorted to rime wasting is Liverpool eh?
{Ed025's Note - it seems that way WDW.. :)
02 Nov 2025 21:11:39
If they do that then I fear it just shifts the problem somewhere else. Like players pretending they are injured a lot more.
02 Nov 2025 21:58:42
Get the player of the pitch and don’t let him back on until a minute has past for each 10 seconds he was holding up play.
{Ed025's Note - have a sniper on the gantry and shoot them..
02 Nov 2025 22:03:25
make it like basketball, 5 seconds to get the ball back in play. The other thing I'd change, and admittedly a bit controversial is that if a player is so hurt that medical staff have to come onto the pitch, then the player shouldn't be able to continue playing. playacting would stop.
02 Nov 2025 22:57:47
Use effective time of 60 min matches (the current average time the ball is in play is 55 mins) . If the game reaches 100 mins without the ball being in play for 60 mins then the team who has time wasted the most time (in possession when the clock is stopped, for a throw in, goal kick etc) loses the game.
This would shorten the overall time the match takes (currently over 100 mins) whilst increasing the time the ball is in play. Simples! ?.
02 Nov 2025 23:09:16
Maybe Stone, but then that penalises players who actually are injured. In the MLS they have a rule that if the medical staff need to come on then that player has to leave the field for 30 secs.
So a team only needs to foul the opposition badly and they get to play against 10 men. I get the intention but it seems like a badly thought out rule to me.
02 Nov 2025 23:10:20
I would LOVE to see retrospective bans for diving or holding of the face when no contact with the face was made. It’s easy to see on replay.
03 Nov 2025 00:11:25
Just do the Rugby thing of effective time with the first out of play incident after 90 minutes being the final whistle. Seems ridiculous introducing all these rules and regs and likely training around consistencies around time wasting when there's a tried and tested solution just staring everyone in the face.
03 Nov 2025 00:11:40
I always think we need some sort of gentlemans' agreement "hey we won't do it if you don't" but that would require what's now sorely missed in the game. sportsmanship.
03 Nov 2025 00:49:15
Speaking of Rugby, football needs ‘a sin bin’ for dissent and simulation.
5 mins first offence. Doubles every subsequent offence. 4 offences = red card.
Whilst I’m on a roll, VAR should be on appeal only. Managers get 1 wrong appeal per half and after 80 mins the each have 1 wrong appeal left. If you want VAR to intervene, you have to describe what you think the error is.
03 Nov 2025 05:25:50
@25, I’ve often thought that about people going through a red light. Have a police sniper shoot one of the so-and-sos and it would send a clear message ?.
Looks likely that I’ll be back in Liverpool late next year. It’d be fun to meet up for a pint @25 and I’ll tell you a similar story from 1981 about a Russian policeman sorting out a pedestrian (an American woman) for transgressing some rule that none of us knew in Red Square. It straightened the rest of us up quick, sharp.
{Ed025's Note - sounds good mate..
03 Nov 2025 08:05:54
Edd 25
Just like Squid games lol.
{Ed025's Note - it would certainly bring back the excitement Chrisy.. :)
03 Nov 2025 09:35:29
You can change the rules all you like but the ref still needs to uphold them. At 0-0 on Saturday Onana went down off the pitch and the ref still stopped the game. It was only when Virg went up to him to point out that the game shouldn't be stopped because he is off the pitch that the ref tried to get the game restarted but there were 2 Villa players completely ignoring him and instead of booking them for deliberate time wasting he let them ignore him and carry on having a drink break until Onana was back on his feet and ready to return to the pitch.
Trying to buy a bit of time towards the end of a game to help get you over the line is one thing but so many teams are wasting time from the first minute nowadays and it is spoiling the game. Don't get me wrong Brentford deserved the win against us but they took 10 minutes off the clock with 10 throw-ins.
Something needs to be done and I think time limits are worth a try. 15 seconds per throw, 30 seconds per dead ball situation. Failure to meet the time limit results in the decision being reversed.
03 Nov 2025 18:36:01
Rather then you have 8 seconds for a throw in or get a yellow, or 8 seconds when the balls in the keepers hands to release or a corner is given to the other team, to address time wasting. scrap that……why not simply you have 8 seconds for a throw in after which the ref will stop the watch until you do, same with keepers give them the 8 seconds, then stop the watch until they do, surely the easiest way to stop time wasting is to stop the watch. Plus it stops opponents learning when for instance, a full back is taking a throw, from in their own half early in a match to overload the area and man mark making throwing options zero in order to get a defender on an early yellow, same for teams who love corners to do the same to keepers early in games.
Its simple after 8 seconds the ref stops the watch until the ball is in play…I trust a ref more to count to 8 and press a pause button, then make more objective decisions about a football match……. alternatively give increasingly aggressive wedgys after 8 seconds.
03 Nov 2025 19:32:37
One of my biggest bugbears is, substitutions in injury time, one of the biggest form of time wasting there is.
03 Nov 2025 21:28:44
If they stop time wasting on throw inns dead ball kicks and corners Arsenal will be knackered they are the masters of it .
Throw in one player picks the ball up walks several feet forward then gives the ball to full back to take the throw in.
Dead ball kicks in there half player stands over the ball waits till players in or around opposition area the player then goes forward the keeper comes up picks the ball up throws it a couple of feet forward and takes the kick .
Corners Arsenal plays crowd the box crowd the keeper then pushing and shoving happens ref stops game to give a lecture to the players .
If opposition getting on top Arsenal player will go down with a mystery injury the rest run to arteta to get more instruction . It was the keeper going down with fake injury but refs caught on to that.
Arsenal a team that depends on free kicks and corners as a big part of their tactics would suffer most if a rule change came in about time wasting.
YNWA.