Football is boring, at least it can be. Some people find it boring because there are not any big hits or massive points tallies, that’s never going to change. People get injured enough playing football without being more lenient on shoulder to shoulder challenges. That’s something that in my opinion we cannot change. What we can change is the amount of time wasted through stoppages. The stoppages in football are goal kicks, free kicks, corner kicks, penalties, substitutions, injuries and to a lesser extent throw ins.

I am just going to rule out a few things first, the timer would not be applicable for injuries. Player welfare should be one of, if not the top priority when considering any rule changes. All injuries require special care and attention. It would be very negligent to cap the amount of time an injured player received treatment for especially for a serious injury.

I am also not talking about a shot clock rule. A shot clock is something that happens in basketball where when the team in possession has the ball, they only have a certain amount of time to get a shot off otherwise it’s the other team’s ball. This would be very hard to police in football, not only that. But the field in football is approximately 8 times larger than a basketball court and would see teams simply retreat to their own box and form a low block in order to play out the clock. So, the shot clock would have to be 3 minutes to be adjusted. I think if this were to occur, we would see a lot of teams revert to just sending the ball long and playing in crosses constantly. This becomes boring and predictable. Especially towards the end of a three-minute spell. Teams would know that time was running out and would set up to defend either long balls, long shots or crosses into the box.

I am talking about a timer like we see in rugby league where kickers have a certain amount of time take a conversion, scrum or dropout. Teams have 30 seconds to take a dropout, 1 minute 30 seconds for conversions and 35 seconds to pack a scrum. This has seen an additional 3 minutes of actual playing time per game. But can it work for football?

FIFA has guidelines as to how long each stoppage in play should occur for. Added time is currently calculated like this. If it takes 30 seconds for a goal kick to be taken but the keeper takes a minute only 30 of those seconds are considered unnatural and are added onto stoppage time. So, they allow a certain amount of time for each stoppage to occur and then anything over that allocated time is adjudged to be excessive and SHOULD be added on. As discussed previously this is often not the case.

Because of how football is played the ball goes out constantly and in addition to this players also foul each other constantly. Foul counts in games can reach a total of 30 between the two teams very easily. That’s every field player committing one foul and half of them committing two. Stoppages are going to happen. But the amount of time that they happen for is reduceable.

I think a timer for stoppages would work well in football, it would increase the amount of times the ball is in play. The more times the ball is in play the more likely there is going to be a goal or some type of action. Football like any sport must constantly evolve its rules in order to keep up with safety, but also to keep the sport interesting and relevant.

Without this the game is in danger of becoming stale and boring. A stoppage shot clock is a more subtle way of increasing entertainment value. Entertainment value being more action for the time and in some cases money you spend to watch something.

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 5^th 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.

A more recent change to help speed-up the game is to do with substitutions. Players originally had to come off at the halfway line on the same side as the substitute was coming on. Presumably this was to stop teams simply subbing a player on without one potentially coming off. Meaning that the team that had made the substitution would now have an extra man on the field. In the early stages of when substitutes were allowed there was not as many cameras around and the support for referees was not as good as it is now. So, the traditional system was an easy way to keep track of who went off and who was coming on to replace them.

This, like the multi ball system had its own issues. Substitutes are often used as timewasting methods by teams. Players being subbed on in the final 5 minutes of regulation time or even stoppage time can hardly be assumed to make much of an impact. They do however often waste a good minute or longer in game time. Especially if the player is coming from the far corner of the ground and decides to walk off at a very slow pace.

In response to this referees, can be seen jogging the player off themselves, even going as so far to brandish yellow cards for timewasting if the player continues to take to long.

Under the new rule though, players must now exit the field at the nearest sideline. Therefore, reducing the slow-motion stroll of the pitch of some players. This drastically reduces the amount of time substitutes can waste time, instead of walking up to 70 meters if they were in the far corner, they would simply be instructed to walk off the one meter to the nearest touchline. Now there has been some confusion with this, some players still try to come off at the traditional spot, but these are just teething issues as players adjust rather than actual faults in the system.

Substitutes and balls cleared into the stands aside there is not much in rules that forces the game to restarted overly quickly, and it is largely up to the referee’s discretion to do so. If the referee wants a frenetic free flowing game then the referee may allow free kicks to be taken quickly, warn time wasters early in the game and be more lenient on 50/50 fouls. If a referee wants a slow, very controlled game then they would do the opposite to that listed above. Let’s look at free kicks first. Free kicks according to numerous studies are the single biggest cause of lost dead ball time.

Free kicks often require the ball to be fetched, placed then kicked forward if it is in the defensive half. Occasionally an annoying opposition player gets in the way or the goalie will take the kick if getting players forward is the main objective.

In the offensive zone however, this process is infinitely longer. The center backs who are usually the taller players lumber forward to take their positions whilst the kick is usually taken by the dead ball specialist in the team and more recently has at least a left and right footer standing over it. If the ball is within 30 yards then there is an additional amount of time for a minimum 2 – man chat of who is going to take it. From a defensive point of view an opposition player usually stands right over the ball and waits for the referee to mark out 10 yards from the ball that players have to stay out of. This is compounded further if the goalkeeper must set a wall and the more people in that wall the more time it takes to set up.

But what if there was a time limit on how long teams had to take a free kick. Currently the average amount of time it takes to take a free kick is 30 seconds. With an average of 20 fouls per game this adds up to around 10 minutes of wasted time. By dropping this time to a fixed 15 second cap you would instantly reduce the amount of time lost by 5 minutes.

Now, there would be strict set of rules around this. The clock would only start once the referee has placed the ball where the foul occurred or allowed a player to do so. Once this has taken place the referee would mark out the required 10 yards for the wall to be taken back. This would all take a max of 5 seconds the players then have 10 seconds to take the kick. Keepers could set up walls prematurely and players could have their pre kick meeting whilst the referee is doing all this, or it could be something pre-determined before kickoff.

If the defensive team purposely delays the restart by constantly creeping within 10 yards or not giving the ball back, then they would receive a delay of game warning. This could be a verbal warning, followed by a yellow card to the offending player if it continues and potentially a send off if that player is already on a yellow. If it is the wall, then all players within the wall would go through that process listed in the sentence before.

If the offensive team takes too long, then one of two actions could take place. Either the free kick could be reversed similar to foul throws or in futsal when players fail to take restarts within 4 seconds. Alternatively, the ball could simply become live after the 15 seconds is up similar to AFL where a player who has taken a mark only has a certain time to play the ball before the umpire waves play on.

This system could easily work for corners and goal kicks where the clock starts when the ball has gone out. It would need to be adjusted for the different match ball systems. I think 30 seconds for single match ball leagues and 15 for multi match ball leagues (allowances for dodgey ball boys would be up to the discretion of the referee). Personally, I am a fan of the live ball scenario. This system could also be used for throw ins however instead of a live ball, the throw in would simply swap sides.

Penalties require more time to set up, especially if it is a VAR reviewed penalty. So maybe 30 or 45 seconds for penalties. Anyone found to be encroaching or the keeper coming of his line would go through the same delay of game warning process above.

Lastly, This could be seen as an alternative to the “Why does stoppage time still exist?” question I answered in my very first blog. You do not need to stop time or add time on if the ball is live after the normal amount of time that FIFA considers natural has past. Therefore eliminating stoppage time except for injuries, substitutions and goal celebrations.

I have intentionally left goal celebrations alone because that is something that the fans enjoy, take part in and is honestly the best part of the experience of watching football. As long as it’s your team that’s celebrating of course. If the changes lead to more and more goals, then yes maybe goal celebration times could be limited to say a minute. After the minute has passed the other team is allowed to kick off something like that. But only if the celebrations were dragging on for ridiculous amounts of time or copious amounts of goals for some reason started to be scored.

That’s not to say you couldn’t have both though. Having both would not only ensure the game flowed at an up-tempo pace but also ran to the correct time. The shot clock in this instance would be used outside the game clock with the game clock continuing as the shot clock ends. This would ensure the maximum amount of entertainment value. The ball would be in play more often and none of the time the ball spends “dead” would run down the game clock.

Now, there would be strict set of rules around this. The clock would only start once the referee has placed the ball where the foul occurred or allowed a player to do so. Once this has taken place the referee would mark out the required 10 yards for the wall to be taken back. This would all take a max of 5 seconds the players then have 10 seconds to take the kick. Keepers could set up walls prematurely and players could have their pre kick meeting whilst the referee is doing all this, or it could be something pre-determined before kickoff.

If the defensive team purposely delays the restart by constantly creeping within 10 yards or not giving the ball back, then they would receive a delay of game warning. This could be a verbal warning, followed by a yellow card to the offending player if it continues and potentially a send off if that player is already on a yellow. If it is the wall, then all players within the wall would go through that process listed in the sentence before.

If the offensive team takes too long, then one of two actions could take place. Either the free kick could be reversed similar to foul throws or in futsal when players fail to take restarts within 4 seconds. Alternatively, the ball could simply become live after the 15 seconds is up similar to AFL where a player who has taken a mark only has a certain time to play the ball before the umpire waves play on.

This system could easily work for corners and goal kicks where the clock starts when the ball has gone out. It would need to be adjusted for the different match ball systems. I think 30 seconds for single match ball leagues and 15 for multi match ball leagues (allowances for dodgey ball boys would be up to the discretion of the referee). Personally, I am a fan of the live ball scenario. This system could also be used for throw ins however instead of a live ball, the throw in would simply swap sides.

Penalties require more time to set up, especially if it is a VAR reviewed penalty. So maybe 30 or 45 seconds for penalties. Anyone found to be encroaching or the keeper coming of his line would go through the same delay of game warning process above.

A more recent change to help speed-up the game is to do with substitutions. Players originally had to come off at the halfway line on the same side as the substitute was coming on. Presumably this was to stop teams simply subbing a player on without one potentially coming off. Meaning that the team that had made the substitution would now have an extra man on the field. In the early stages of when substitutes were allowed there was not as many cameras around and the support for referees was not as good as it is now. So, the traditional system was an easy way to keep track of who went off and who was coming on to replace them.

This, like the multi ball system had its own issues. Substitutes are often used as timewasting methods by teams. Players being subbed on in the final 5 minutes of regulation time or even stoppage time can hardly be assumed to make much of an impact. They do however often waste a good minute or longer in game time. Especially if the player is coming from the far corner of the ground and decides to walk off at a very slow pace.

In response to this referees, can be seen jogging the player off themselves, even going as so far to brandish yellow cards for timewasting if the player continues to take to long.

Under the new rule though, players must now exit the field at the nearest sideline. Therefore, reducing the slow-motion stroll of the pitch of some players. This drastically reduces the amount of time substitutes can waste time, instead of walking up to 70 meters if they were in the far corner, they would simply be instructed to walk off the one meter to the nearest touchline. Now there has been some confusion with this, some players still try to come off at the traditional spot, but these are just teething issues as players adjust rather than actual faults in the system.

FIFA has guidelines as to how long each stoppage in play should occur for. Added time is currently calculated like this. If it takes 30 seconds for a goal kick to be taken but the keeper takes a minute only 30 of those seconds are considered unnatural and are added onto stoppage time. So, they allow a certain amount of time for each stoppage to occur and then anything over that allocated time is adjudged to be excessive and SHOULD be added on. As discussed previously this is often not the case.

Because of how football is played the ball goes out constantly and in addition to this players also foul each other constantly. Foul counts in games can reach a total of 30 between the two teams very easily. That’s every field player committing one foul and half of them committing two. Stoppages are going to happen. But the amount of time that they happen for is reduceable.

I think a timer for stoppages would work well in football, it would increase the amount of times the ball is in play. The more times the ball is in play the more likely there is going to be a goal or some type of action. Football like any sport must constantly evolve its rules in order to keep up with safety, but also to keep the sport interesting and relevant.

Without this the game is in danger of becoming stale and boring. A stoppage shot clock is a more subtle way of increasing entertainment value. Entertainment value being more action for the time and in some cases money you spend to watch something.

 

I heard this mentioned the other day and I figured I would throw my terry two cents worth on the internet for everyone to see. Football is currently a sport of two halves of 45 minutes each + stoppage time (time added on for stoppages in play). Personally, I do not think this will happen, even if it did football has a whole host of other things to deal with first.

I also do not think that it is necessary, as a player you want to play and if you were to go down to 4 quarters of 25 mins for example then you end up spending more time getting a break and less time playing. So, it’s great for people who think the fitness aspect of football is too hard, but that is one of the best parts about football. If you like football but hate running play FIFA or become a goalkeeper.

2 halves compared to 4 quarters also creates a more open game. An open end to end game of football is an exciting spectacle. This generally happens towards the end of the halves, in particular the last half. Many, many goals have come late in matches as a result of tired and fatigued players making mistakes they would not normally make. Not only is it more exhausting physically but it is also more exhausting mentally to have 2 halves instead of 4 quarters. Once again adding to the openness of the game.

By having 4 quarters you create more stoppages. This means that the game goes a lot slower. We do not want football turning into NFL where a 60-minute game takes 3 hours of coverage. You could reduce the break times in between quarters to pick up the speed of the game but if you do that … why not just have 2 halves.

4 quarters of football brings other negative impacts aside from the one I mentioned in my last post. Namely a more closed game. By giving player more and more time to rest it enables them to recover both physically and mentally. This means that they can get their concentration back meaning that fewer and fewer mistakes are being made because players are not suffering from fatigue. This then leads to less goals. Its already hard enough to score goals as it is, let’s not make it any harder.

I would also wonder what sort of impact that would have on substitutions. Generally speaking, you sub players for two reasons. They are tired, or you are changing something tactically. If you have more breaks you would take away one of those reasons. Players being tired. Now I’m not saying that players will fully recover in 10 mins after running around on a field they will still get tired. But not to the extent that they normally would. This would mean that substitutes would almost be reserved for tactical changes and injuries. This may limit the opportunities of those players to play unless the right circumstance arises. The impact of a fresh player as well would be weakened. There is nothing worse in a match than marking a player who does not stop running, finally gets tired and then gets substituted for someone completely fresh. But if you have the game in quarters, then players recover and someone coming on at the start of the 4^th quarter would have a lesser impact then the same player coming on in the 35th minute of a second half. At least from a physical point of view.

This would also restrict the opportunity for youth players. Youth players who rise through an academy system very rarely start straight away. They usually start from the bench and then are slowly introduced into the senior team assuming that they are good enough. Young players are also usually the ones who go on in place of tired players as they are in most circumstances pacey, agile and quick. By going to 4 quarters I think it would close the game up and teams would have to rely on the skill of their players and coaches in order to get the win as opposed to a tired opposition. I also think that it will limit the opportunities given to substitutes especially youth players who go on to gain valuable experience at the end of matches when players are tired.

There are however some groups of people who would probably like football going to 4 quarters. Some fans would probably appreciate the switch. Football is one of those games where if you are away from the game for 15 seconds you can miss a goal. This is true in other sports however it only occurs vary rarely, intercept tries and tries off charge downs in rugby are an example of this. So, fans who want to get up and go get food, or go to the bathroom for example, risk missing out on the action. 4 quarters would benefit them because instead of 20 minutes in, needing to go to the bathroom and having to hold it until half time they could go and have a break at the 25-minute mark. This is true for fans who see the game live at the stadium or ones at home watching on the TV.

TV networks would also benefit immensely from this as it provides an opportunity to display more advertisements in the quarter breaks. TV advertising is extremely effective and is also extremely expensive. More available advertisements equal more money for the broadcaster so I would assume that they would also perhaps be in favor of the switch.

Continuing from this those companies that want to advertise on the TV during the game would also benefit from the game going to 4 quarters. More available advertisement slots might drop the price, meaning that companies who couldn’t afford it before might be able to. This is a benefit in itself but would also (hopefully) have a positive impact on that business’s performance provided their product or service was good enough to back up the ad. So, I don’t think everyone would be against it but I still do not think that it would be a positive change in the game.

From the point of view of a coach, it really varies. As a coach myself if my team is absolutely annihilating another team, I do not want the game to stop. If we(my team) are all over them in the first 20 mins and we are scoring goals then I do not want that stop. Even more so if we are dominating and have not scored yet. Momentum is so important in a football game and by giving teams the chance to reset every 20 – 25mins it ruins the chance to build and build momentum. Momentum is also very fragile and something as little as little as a couple minute stoppage can change it or break it. That’s why you see teams who are under pressure start fouling, they do it to disrupt and slow the game down to slow the momentum of the other team.

That works both ways though, if I was a coach and my team was getting hammered, I would want the game to be slowed down and as many interruptions as possible to disrupt the other team. In this situation 4 quarters would be a benefit to a coach.

It would also be easier in my opinion to close out quarters instead of halves. If a less skillful team is winning a game or perhaps drawing a game it is easier, in my opinion for that team to hold on to that advantage. This is because instead of holding on for the last 30 mins of match for example they would only have to hold on for 3 minutes and then get a chance to reset and recover. 4 quarters would mean potentially more upsets, games would be closer but slower and, in my opinion, more boring. People watch a sport like football to be entertained and for me entertainment is action, by slowing the game down you rob football of its action and make it more pragmatic.

So, no I do not think that football will ever go to 4 quarters, even if it did it would not be for the for see able future.