Three-quarters of British football fans who have watched the Qatar 2022 World Cup believe the lengthy time added on for stoppages has worked well in the tournament, according to a YouGov poll.
Long first-half and second-half stoppage times have been a distinctive feature of this World Cup and many records for the length of games have, as a consequence, been broken.
In contrast to domestic fixtures, when usually only a few minutes are added on, the World Cup group stage had an extra 563 minutes of play, beyond the standard 90. That is more than nine hours.
From the outset, hosts Qatar’s game against Ecuador to kick off the tournament had 10 minutes and 18 seconds of stoppage time. And England’s match against Iran — the 6-2 thriller to begin their World Cup — had an additional 27 minutes, making it the longest World Cup group stage match, at a total of 117 minutes.
Wales’ draw with USA also saw an additional 14 minutes and 34 seconds, while the Netherlands v Senegal had 12 minutes and 49 seconds added. The Netherlands were two goals behind Argentina when Wout Weghorst scored in the 83rd minute and again in the 11th minute of second-half stoppage time to take the tie to extra time in one of the tournament’s most dramatic matches, eventually won by Argentina on penalties.
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Asked to what extent the approach to stoppage time has worked in Qatar 2022, 28 per cent said it had worked well and 47 per cent said it had worked fairly well. Only 16 per cent thought it had worked badly. And 45 per cent reported that the approach had made the World Cup more enjoyable, with only 13 per cent not enjoying it.
Interestingly, more fans believe it would be fairer to have a system whereby the clock was stopped when the ball is out of play than one where lots of added time is included.
i revealed in April that the Portuguese Football Federation had asked IFAB — football’s lawmakers — to conduct an official trial into matches with 30-minute halves but the clock stopping when the ball is not in play, in the country’s Under 23 Revelation Cup.
Responding to which of the two was the fairer system, 42 per cent said stopping the clock while 32 per cent said the World Cup stoppage time approach. Another 20 per cent believe they are equally fair.
Last month, legendary former referee Pierluigi Collina, chairman of Fifa’s referees committee, explained that the system of adding on time needed changing as it wasn’t currently fair for both teams playing.
“Whenever there will be an incident like treatment, substitution, penalty, red card or celebration of a goal – I want to underline that because it is a moment of joy for one team, for the other maybe not – but it may last one or one and a half minutes,” he said. “So imagine in a half there are two or three goals scored, and it’s easy to lose five or six minutes, and this team must be compensated at the end.”
Fans in the YouGov poll were also surveyed about their opinions on Video Assistant Referees during the World Cup. More than half — 58 per cent — felt that it had worked well, with only 15 per cent responding that it had worked badly. Almost a third said it had made the World Cup more enjoyable, although one fifth thought it had made it worse.
Comparing VAR in Qatar to the application of VAR in domestic competitions, 32 per cent said it was better, 12 per cent worse, while 40 per cent considered it about the same.
The poll was conducted with 670 British football fans who watched the World Cup between at least November 29 and 30.
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