Football's flow is being killed by pointless stoppages

Paradoxically, while last season went on for longer than any other, with the World Cup causing a major pause, less football was played than ever before. That has to change in 2023-24.

The ball was in play for less than 55 minutes in the average Premier League game as teams found tedious new ways to waste time and referees did little to stop it.

There are encouraging signs that we will get more football this term, with law-makers IFAB suggesting the more realistic allocations of stoppage time that were such a welcome feature of the World Cup will be applied in club football globally. We are told the reason this did not happen post-Qatar was that such a directive could not have been applied mid-season.

Additionally, the EFL have finally outlawed players using towels to dry the ball before launching long throw-ins, a ruse that is akin to a player bringing on a stepladder to help gain an advantage at a corner.

But even if refs do simply add on more time to nullify a team’s attempts to shorten the game, football needs to flow more freely to retain one of its core attributes, and here are some measures that they should consider introducing.

Clamp down on keepers

Goalies have been allowed to become masters of nibbling away at the clock in a variety of ways, but it’s time to halt their little games. No more holding on to it before launching it upfield or waiting ages to take a goal kick, no more catching the ball and then casually flopping to the ground and no more delaying penalties by banging the soles of your boots on the post.

Most importantly, bring back the excellent and scandalously mothballed six-second rule and enforce it without fail.

No more silly lines

I have, with acute reluctance, accepted VAR is here to stay but that does not mean it has to elongate matches so destructively. The video officials should have no more than 30 seconds to challenge any decision. If they need any longer it is not an obvious mistake.

This is especially true of offsides. I hope we will look back at the days of those ludicrous lines appearing on the screen and goals being disallowed because the blurry image of a player’s shoulder was deemed to be 1mm offside with a blend of humour, astonishment and shame.

Speed up substitutions

There is no need whatsoever for it to take as long as it does to swap one player for another or even five players for five others.

In rugby league players slip on and off while the match carries on and that’s what should happen in football. As long as the PA announcer, big-screen operator and TV graphics guys are on their game it should be easy to inform everyone who has come on and gone off and the absurd pauses while the whole dull slow-motion replacement ceremony takes place would end instantly.

Faster free kicks

It is now possible to assemble flat-pack furniture in the period from a free kick being awarded to it being taken. Another much-missed law was that if a player prevented a free kick being taken quickly they were cautioned. Bring that back.

And if the team that has been awarded the free kick wants to take it before the defending team (the one that committed the foul, don’t forget) has had time to position its wall with the precision of a chartered surveyor, that’s their tough luck. 

Carry on doctor

For most injuries the physios should be able to rush on and treat players without the need to stop the game. It works perfectly well in rugby and would do in football.

Obviously if a player has a head injury, their femur is snapped at right-angles or the injury is in either goal mouth play has to stop, but by allowing the game to carry on, the cheats who feign injury would have no reason to do so and the game would benefit considerably.

Here’s to a future of more football and less cheating because some of the nonsense that has developed in recent seasons has been extremely dismal to watch.

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