Would the presence of a timer for stoppages have a positive impact on football? – Part 3
FIFA as well as its associations have already tried to reduce the time lost to stoppages in play. For example the multi ball system is used in several UEFA competitions as well as the World cup and even our own Hyundai A-League. Traditionally football is only played with one ball, if it goes out the game does not restart until the ball is retrieved or returned. The multi ball systems purpose is to speed up the game by having ball boys stationed around the field with match balls in hand to quickly give to a player if the ball goes into the stands.
Whilst it works in theory, there have been some criticisms of the system. Ball boys tend to be from home teams and if the home team would benefit from the game being restarted as quick as possible the ball boys may appear to be more proactive in supplying the balls. On the other side of this some ball boys have also been accused of intentionally delaying the return of match balls to away teams in order to waste time and benefit the home team.
In fact, this came to a head in a game at Yeovil Town in the English 5th tier or national league. One of the Yeovil Town ball boys refused to give the ball to a Bromely player and as a result the referee warned him if he did it again he would be dissmissed. When the boy did it again, he and the other 7 ball boys were all dismissed. The referee was then left to get the ball himself throughout the last few minutes of the game the Yeovil ended up winning 3 – 1. Like everything in football, clubs and teams will always look to gain a competitive advantage by twisting the rules whichever way they can.