The Qatar World Cup, which is gradually increasing tempo, is already in the record books for one reason – the stoppage time played at the end of the half.
By the time Day 2 of the tournament ended, with a draw between the USA and Wales, the tournament had already witnessed four singles halves with most added time since 1966, when data keeping for this aspect began, according to stats firm Opta. The first half of England-Iran game saw 14.08 minutes of time added, while 13.08 minutes were played after the regulation time in the second half. More than 10 minutes were added towards the end of second half in the USA-Wales (10.34) and Netherlands-Senegal (10.03) matches as well.
Collectively, the Qatar-Ecuador match lasted for 100 minutes and 18 seconds, England and Iran players were out on the field for 117 minutes, 16 seconds and the length of Netherlands-Senegal game was 102 minutes, 49 seconds.
These are all unusually long stoppage times. While the first half of England’s game against Iran saw a long break due to the head injury to Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand, more time is being added to halves, according to FIFA’s referees chief, to ensure all 45 minutes of a half are played and not a second is wasted due to injury, goal celebration, VAR, substitutions or deliberate time wasting.
The step has received mixed response but experts agree this is step in the right direction to address one of football’s biggest problems – time wasting.
Former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher was happy with the new application and wrote: “Enjoying the amount of time that is being added on by the officials at #QatarWorldCup2022 there is too much time wasting in football!”
Enjoying the amount of time that is being added on by the officials at #QatarWorldCup2022 there is too much time wasting in football!
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) November 21, 2022
Pierluigi Collina, chairman of Fifa’s referee’s committee, had spoken on the matter before and highlighted how fourth officials had been categorically told to maintain track of time lost due to stoppages.
“In Russia, we tried to be more accurate in compensating for time lost during games and that’s why you saw six, seven, or even eight minutes added on,” he was quoted as saying by ESPN.
“Think about it: if you have three goals in a half, you’ll probably lose four or five minutes in total to celebrations and the restart.”
“We told everybody to don’t be surprised if they see the fourth official raising the electronic board with a big number on it, six, seven, or eight minutes.”
“If you want more active time, we need to be ready to see this kind of additional time given.”
“What we want to do is accurately calculate the added time at the end of each half. It can be the fourth official to do that, we were successful in Russia and we expect the same in Qatar.”
And so, if the first few games of this World Cup as well as Collina’s comments are anything to go by, the trend is likely to continue in upcoming matches in Qatar.
