This World Cup is marked by rather unusual additional times sometimes exceeding ten minutes. In all, 65 minutes have been added in just four matches. FIFA is at the origin of this shift which could mark a turning point.
While rumors announced that the governing body of football wanted to increase to 100 minutes of play per match to counter the too many stoppages of play, FIFA made it clear that such a project was not under consideration. “Following some published articles and rumours, FIFA would like to clarify that there will be no change in the rules regarding the duration of football matches for the World Cup or any other competition”the body explained in April.
Despite this, Gianni InfantinoPresident of FIFA, acknowledged that a “true reflection on effective time” had to take place. Relaunched by BeINSports to whom he had granted an interview on the subject, Infantino had spoken of additional time as a possible solution: “The additional minutes that the referee should give must be minutes really in relation to the time lost during the match, you have to think about the future”.
It is true that the effective time is very far from the regulatory 90 minutes. On the subject, the Sports Courier studied the subject and the actual playing time would be around 50 minutes in the five major European leagues, or just over half time.
Infantino’s thoughts have therefore been implemented during this World Cup. With 14 and 10 minutes added time, England-Iran became the longest match in World Cup history since 1966, excluding extra time. If the injuryAlireza Beiranvand explains a large part of the minutes added in the first half, those of the second were rather surprising. In the meeting between Senegal and the Netherlands, there was also a lot of additional time, ten minutes in all. In four matches, the cumulative additional time was 65 minutes, or more than eight minutes per half.
Pierluigi CollinaChairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, warned before the tournament: “We want to avoid games with 42, 43, 44 minutes of effective time. So the times for substitutions, penalties, celebrations, medical treatment or of course VAR, will have to be compensated”.
If it will be necessary to see over the whole competition if such a measure holds, it could at least make it possible to avoid many frustrating time savings for the show.
