Time wasting and general poophousery

Calpol

Calpol

Calpol

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3 Oct 2010
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Watched a bit of footie yesterday and became quite irritated with the tactics being employed by teams to waste time. In particular Newcastle, once they got the goal almost managed to allow no play for the last 15 mins of the match. The additional substitutions are also being abused to run down the clock and frustrate. Whether its the slowest walk off, ignoring the "leave the pitch at the nearest exit" rule or the buying of soft fouls and taking an eternity to recover it contributing to a poor spectacle for fans.
Came across this article on Sky which confirms that the Toon are as bad as there is but the whole league is offering only about 51 minutes of action in a game. Surely this has to tackled. At least in the World cup they were adding on more time but the most I've seen this weekend was six minutes.

Timewasting

Anyone else getting ****** off with this?
 
Every team does it to stop momentum and to reset. Fulham were rightly wasting time when we were chasing a goal. *********** and gamesmanship is a part of the beautiful game.

It's on the officials to add the right amount of time.
 
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They need to change up the rules completely and pause the timer anytime the ball is not in play. That way you'll always get exactly 90 minutes regardless of how much time wasting players do.
 
I see many issues which need to be looked at:

1: Time wasted during the "added minutes" seems more likely to be dismissed and not accounted for. i.e. +5 minutes get added but during which 2 substitutions get made which take 3 minutes, they never then play 8 minutes. They tend to go to about 6 minutes and then the crowd and managers and players start going mental to blow the whistle.

2: Incorrect amount of minutes added in the first place. The world cup tried to tackle it a bit, but in reality some prem games only have about 50 odd minutes of actual ball in play time I think I read recently. Newcastle vs Arsenal was a classic for that.

3: Play acting, faking and "Cramp". Players who claim to suffer with cramp, 99.999% of the time are faking it. If players really did get cramp, we would see it occur not just in the dying moments of games, but sometimes in the 70th/80th minute as well as other times. Never happens.

4: Players that stand in front of the ball, deliberately set up a wall 3 yards away and wait for the referee to reset it, kicking the ball away, hanging on to the ball, moving the ball to the otherside of goal on goal kicks, replacing the ball several times in a different seemingly better tuft of grass, walking 20 yards down the touchline on throws, players going down after their ear got flicked for a tactical rest..... etc etc etc.

It's simple to stop all of this. Just have a proper "in play" clock and reduce half lengths to about 30/35/40 minutes. Whichever amount statistically would give us about 90 minutes worth of total match time. You can have a timekeeper person separately deal with this to free up the ref to focus on actual decisions.
 
Yes teh "in-play" clock would work, as it does in Rugby but a big step in the right direction would be if refs actually were harder on the players. They know they can get away with near murder so push it to the limits. Very rare a player gets booked for time wasting compared to how many do it. Should be an instant yellow.

I see now that players are exploiting the "head injury" rules as well - knowing the ref has to stop play if a player goes down holding his head.

Its all a farce. Should be the same as rugby also - if there is a head injury they have to go off for an assessment which takes 5 - 10 mins - not roll around on the floor for ages then get up and start playing again.
 
Most important thing for me is the very deliberate shirt-pulling fouls to halt a counter attack. Needs to be more than a yellow. Either red, or a new 10 minute sin binning or something.
 
Pretty much the reason i lost a significant interest in the game really. I would add 5min sin bin, same as the gobbing off at officials, needs stamping out 100%
 
This isn't a new thing. I remember during either Italia'90 or USA'94 there was stats for this shows on the intermission screens at HT/FT, it was like 23 mins in play time per half. And don't forget 30+ years ago before the backpass law came in you had 'in play timewasting' as well where they just pass it around between defenders and keeper who could just pick the ball up.

The really annoying thing for me isn't so much the timewasting itself, it is the way it is handled:
  • The lack of adequate time being added on in general. Often the amount added barely covers the subs and goals never mind injuries, arguments etc. Considering a typical second half involves at least 4 subs and 1 or 2 goals, +3mins should almost be like the default for a game with a typical number of goals and no injuries or red cards etc, meaning in reality it should be extremely rare to see less than 5mins added on. "Where's he got six minutes from!!!!" yell the fans/pundits - well, just watch the bloody game with a stopwatch and you would have seen it being more than that.
  • The lack of time being properly added during injury time. If there is +3mins and there is a 1min cumulative delay between the board being raised and Fulltime, then it needs be a minimum of 4mins played.
  • The attitude of fans that think refs have allowed 'too much' injury time beyond what the board stated. Even if there are no further stoppages (see above), a "minimum of 3mins" does NOT mean the ref should be blowing up at 93:00. It means it should be anywhere between 93:00 and 93:59. Maybe the game has been delayed by 3:55 during 90mins and then a further 5s delay due to someone being slow on a throw-in would make it 4mins.
  • Continental refs being especially bad, in european matches if there is +3mins you basically always see the ref blow up around 92:58-93:01 (yes, sometimes before even the minimum has been played) regardless of what happened since the board was raised 4mins prior. It is implausible to me that the amount of stoppage time should add up to a nice round number of minutes every time so the number that gets announced should be on average be 30s less than what is actually played, assuming no further stoppages.
  • The lack of action from referees, basically you see it all the time with 'weaker' teams holding out for points where the keeper takes ages over goalkicks etc, they often get away with the first timewasting, especially if it is in the first half. Maybe if an indirect freekick was awarded for being too slow taking a goalkick (or indeed any set piece) they'd be less cheeky about it. Similarly when goals are scored you often see the team celebrating for way too long if they aren't losing, they book people taking their shirt off but why not when having a massive pile-on etc? Other team should be allowed to kick off regardless of whether opposition players are in their half if 30s have passed since the goal was scored, that would soon sort it out, they won't be doing their silly dances down by the corner flag then.

The WC was actually a breath of fresh air for me and in some ways boosted the entertainment because you'd get that adrenaline rush when +9 is announced thinking OK boys we're going to get at least one or two more chances.

Semple said:
They need to change up the rules completely and pause the timer anytime the ball is not in play. That way you'll always get exactly 90 minutes regardless of how much time wasting players do.
Click to expand...
90mins is too long, games would go on for like 2.5hrs. Or even if it reduced timewasting due to it not being effective anymore, it would still be over 2hrs probably. You'd have to ditch extra time and go straight to pens in cup competitions. Needs to be 30min halves with stop clock.
 
Last edited:
Calpol said:
Watched a bit of footie yesterday and became quite irritated with the tactics being employed by teams to waste time. In particular Newcastle, once they got the goal almost managed to allow no play for the last 15 mins of the match. The additional substitutions are also being abused to run down the clock and frustrate. Whether its the slowest walk off, ignoring the "leave the pitch at the nearest exit" rule or the buying of soft fouls and taking an eternity to recover it contributing to a poor spectacle for fans.
Came across this article on Sky which confirms that the Toon are as bad as there is but the whole league is offering only about 51 minutes of action in a game. Surely this has to tackled. At least in the World cup they were adding on more time but the most I've seen this weekend was six minutes.

Timewasting

Anyone else getting ****** off with this?
Click to expand...
Ironically, they lost the game at Anfield in the 6th or 7th minute of 'time wasting' time.
One of the recent tactics we see now is defending players going down in the box holding their head, knowing full well the ref will stop the game and in most cases the opposition attack, the ref will run over, check on him, he'll rub his head, get up and then play on from a drop ball that's took out all the sting and pressure from the attack. If it happens, then the ref should immediately call on the physio (because it's a head 'injury') before he gets to the player and subsequently, after 'treatment' the player will leave the pitch and wait to be called back on, let's see if being a man down for an attack cuts it out.
 
jaybee said:
I see many issues which need to be looked at:

1: Time wasted during the "added minutes" seems more likely to be dismissed and not accounted for. i.e. +5 minutes get added but during which 2 substitutions get made which take 3 minutes, they never then play 8 minutes. They tend to go to about 6 minutes and then the crowd and managers and players start going mental to blow the whistle.

2: Incorrect amount of minutes added in the first place. The world cup tried to tackle it a bit, but in reality some prem games only have about 50 odd minutes of actual ball in play time I think I read recently. Newcastle vs Arsenal was a classic for that.

3: Play acting, faking and "Cramp". Players who claim to suffer with cramp, 99.999% of the time are faking it. If players really did get cramp, we would see it occur not just in the dying moments of games, but sometimes in the 70th/80th minute as well as other times. Never happens.

4: Players that stand in front of the ball, deliberately set up a wall 3 yards away and wait for the referee to reset it, kicking the ball away, hanging on to the ball, moving the ball to the otherside of goal on goal kicks, replacing the ball several times in a different seemingly better tuft of grass, walking 20 yards down the touchline on throws, players going down after their ear got flicked for a tactical rest..... etc etc etc.

It's simple to stop all of this. Just have a proper "in play" clock and reduce half lengths to about 30/35/40 minutes. Whichever amount statistically would give us about 90 minutes worth of total match time. You can have a timekeeper person separately deal with this to free up the ref to focus on actual decisions.
Click to expand...
If Rugby League can manage a 'stop' clock, I'm sure football can. Have a clock in the stadium, the ref stops the clock during injuries/time wasting etc and everyone knows exactly when the game will finish. It's amazing how many games finish when the ball is in the air from a goal kick yet not in the preceding 30 secs it takes to take the goal kick!
 
My son’s U14’s were playing on Saturday and losing 2-1. I completely missed it because I was not paying enough attention, but the opposing managers son was playing in goal and whenever he got the ball he shouted out ‘Pickford’. The keeper would then roll around on the floor with the ball. The Ref thankfully had enough and added on 3 minutes and warned the coach. My son’s team equalised and the ref blew, tbh I think he was going to play until we scored.

All hell broke loose then but to their assistant managers credit he said they got what they deserved as they do it often.

It’s depressing that the cheating filters down to even crap level U14 football.
 
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