Opinion – The World is a Ball: When less is more: football should change 90 minutes for 60 minutes

In order to make the game more interesting, in order not to lose the attention of a youth that is increasingly demanding to be entertained at all times, football authorities are studying changes in the rules of the most popular sport on the planet.

Football authorities, in this case, mean the Ifab (International Football Association Board), a body based in Zurich (Switzerland) that is responsible for authorizing or not authorizing changes to the sport.

Ifab has an annual meeting, where it discusses the progress of the game and the need to test innovations that may be approved. The controversial VAR (video assistant referee) was the most profound change seen by football recently.

Why controversial? Because, in order to prevent clear and obvious errors, it has not fulfilled this role to the letter, with numerous cases in which its interference is unnecessary, which delays the progress of the match. And what’s worse: the final markup is not always correct.

Founded in 1886, Ifab is made up of five federations, four of which are British: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, with one vote each. FIFA, football’s highest body, completes the picture, with the right to four votes.

For a rule modification or implementation to take place, there must be six favorable votes.

At its most recent meeting this month in Doha, Qatar, host country of this year’s Men’s World Cup, Ifab definitively approved a measure provisionally implemented during the Covid pandemic: allowing each team to make five substitutions, and not just three, per game.

Another change is the number of players involved in a football match. Ifab has decided that the number of reserves in each can, if the tournament organizer so wishes, be 15 – the current limit is 12. The World Cup will adopt the new formula.

That’s for now, but the most significant change, and one that will make a big difference in football dynamics, should occur in the near future, after tests show the obvious: that it’s good.

This is about reducing the match time from 90 to 60 minutes. It doesn’t seem to make sense, but it does. Well, less will be more.

Because? Because those 60 minutes will be ball in play. As in basketball, if the game stops, the timer also stops.

Whenever the round is not in motion – in fouls, penalties, substitutions, when going out through the side or back lines, or for any other reason, including goals – there is no time running.

And best of all: it will be the death of wax, which has been harmfully always part of the game, ever since it started to have 90 minutes clocked, in the century before last.

The team that has the advantage will no longer have this artifice to play around, whether it’s taking a long time to hit a goal kick or a foul or a corner, whether a player simulating an injury, or the coach asking for substitutions.

In the Premier League, one of the most prestigious in the world, the average ball in play has been 55 minutes per match, with a very drawn-out game between West Ham and Brentford recording less than 42 minutes of ball movement.

In this new football, which will exist, there will be two stages, each lasting 30 minutes, with effectively half an hour of ball rolling. Always, without exception.

Possibly, as in basketball, a polling station will take care of the timer, and fans will be able to know the minutes via the electronic scoreboard – in the stadiums where it exists.

This, by the way, is a fundamental question. Make it clear, for all participants in the match in question – the players, the coaches, the fans –, the timer. Essential to avoid questions and/or complaints.

If this is not the case, the rule can only be introduced in competitions that have the financial capacity to make the rule viable. This will make football (more) unequal, which is undesirable, in the different squares of the planet.

Unfortunately, this scenario is certain to occur, as the money in Western Europe, the US and parts of the Middle East (all wealthy) differs markedly from that in Third World countries, Africa and Latin America included.

VAR, mentioned at the beginning of this text, has always been for the few. The timer displayed to all will be equally displayed unless a way can be found to rapidly and reliably expand the technology. (You and I both know it won’t.)

In short: apart from the problem of inequality in the championships, which doesn’t seem to have a solution, the idea is great, and I hope it comes soon.

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In time: Other proposals discussed by Ifab and which should be tested in youth competitions are the charging of sides with the feet (the target of criticism from the specialized media) and the referee giving explanations of certain decisions during the game, as in the American football (adequate, but if the general objective is to make the game more agile, it is not the best way).