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Reforms for football being debated


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The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is discussing a number of changes to the game in order to cut down time wasting, as well as promote fair play and respect for opponents and officials.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40311889

 

One of the "headline" reforms would be to reduce halves from 45 minutes to 30. The match clock would also be stopped whenever the match officials are required to intervene, instead of adding time on.

 

Other changes under consideration include:

 

 


  •  
  • passing to yourself at a free-kick, corner and goal-kick
     
  • a stadium clock which stops and starts along with the referee's watch
     
  • allowing the goal-kick to be taken even if the ball is moving
     
  • a goal-kick being taken on the same side that the ball went out on
     
  • a "clearer and more consistent definition" of handball
     
  • a player who scores a goal or stops a goal with his hands gets a red card
     
  • a keeper who handles a backpass or throw-in from a team-mate concedes a penalty
     
  • the referee can award a goal if a player stops a goal being scored by handling on or close to the goal-line
     
  • referees can only blow for half-time or full-time when the ball goes out of play
     
  • a penalty kick is either scored or missed/saved and players cannot follow up to score to stop encroachment into the penalty area

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I can't imagine they'll ever successfully be able to shorten games by a third, that'd be madness.

 

It would actually make games longer if you think about it. Stopping the clock while an injured player is treated or a substitution is being made will give a more accurate sense of stoppage time as opposed to the arbitrary few minutes you get currently.

 

The main one I agree with is the penalty one. If a keeper saves a penalty or the taker hits the post or crossbar then it should be a dead ball, I hate seeing rebounds being tucked in!

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Think they're all pretty poor suggestions - barring the clearer definition of handballs. Most would serve to just Americanise the sport and make it more technical and less enjoyable to watch in my eyes.

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The clearer definition of handball is the only absolute must there for me, I thought the definition still said it must be deliberate but freekicks are frequently given for accidental handball but it has stopped a through ball or shot or something. Plus it'll stop one of the lads I play 5 a side with claiming handball for absolutely everything!!

Clock stopping seems a sensible and relatively simple way of curbing time wasting etc - bit crap for lower league and Sunday league teams where they don't have a viewable clock.

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I can't imagine they'll ever successfully be able to shorten games by a third, that'd be madness.

 

It would actually make games longer if you think about it. Stopping the clock while an injured player is treated or a substitution is being made will give a more accurate sense of stoppage time as opposed to the arbitrary few minutes you get currently.

 

The main one I agree with is the penalty one. If a keeper saves a penalty or the taker hits the post or crossbar then it should be a dead ball, I hate seeing rebounds being tucked in!

 

Reducing halves to 30 minutes would categorically make the game shorter regardless of if you also stopped the clock.

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I can't imagine they'll ever successfully be able to shorten games by a third, that'd be madness.

 

It would actually make games longer if you think about it. Stopping the clock while an injured player is treated or a substitution is being made will give a more accurate sense of stoppage time as opposed to the arbitrary few minutes you get currently.

 

The main one I agree with is the penalty one. If a keeper saves a penalty or the taker hits the post or crossbar then it should be a dead ball, I hate seeing rebounds being tucked in!

 

Reducing halves to 30 minutes would categorically make the game shorter regardless of if you also stopped the clock.

 

It almost definitely wouldn't for the majority of games. In the link below there's some analysis of a metric called 'effective time' or the time that the ball is in play during a football match. As you can see from the graphs, very few games have upwards of 60 minutes of effective time, therefore rather than shortening games it would actually lengthen the playing time of a lot of games.

 

The actual time that games take to play would probably go up as stopping the clock every time there is a stoppage in play could lead to an NFL play-by-play type scenario between each stoppage rather than flowing football. This is one of the reasons I wouldn't support a change like that but in terms of the amount of action you see, it would probably increase it.

 

http://www.soccermetrics.net/team-performance/effective-time-in-football

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I can't imagine they'll ever successfully be able to shorten games by a third, that'd be madness.

 

It would actually make games longer if you think about it. Stopping the clock while an injured player is treated or a substitution is being made will give a more accurate sense of stoppage time as opposed to the arbitrary few minutes you get currently.

 

The main one I agree with is the penalty one. If a keeper saves a penalty or the taker hits the post or crossbar then it should be a dead ball, I hate seeing rebounds being tucked in!

 

Reducing halves to 30 minutes would categorically make the game shorter regardless of if you also stopped the clock.

 

It almost definitely wouldn't for the majority of games. In the link below there's some analysis of a metric called 'effective time' or the time that the ball is in play during a football match. As you can see from the graphs, very few games have upwards of 60 minutes of effective time, therefore rather than shortening games it would actually lengthen the playing time of a lot of games.

 

The actual time that games take to play would probably go up as stopping the clock every time there is a stoppage in play could lead to an NFL play-by-play type scenario between each stoppage rather than flowing football. This is one of the reasons I wouldn't support a change like that but in terms of the amount of action you see, it would probably increase it.

 

http://www.soccermetrics.net/team-performance/effective-time-in-football

 

I think thats what IFAB's thinking is based on. On average you only get 60 minutes actual play in matches, due to injuries, players mobbing refs and various time-wasting tactics.

 

Shortening the official match time would (hopefully) have a psychological effect on the players, encouraging them to get on with the game, instead of messing about.

 

That said, matches would in practice last a fair bit longer, if the clock had to be stopped quite frequently.

 

Also, to whoever said it would "Americanise" the sport, I would remind them that they've been doing this in rugby for ages. ;)

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