Fifa are monitoring time spent on goal celebrations as part of an edict that is leading to long periods of stoppage time in World Cup matches.
The world governing body has confirmed to i that specific guidance was issued to teams and that long injury time periods will become a regular occurrence at the Qatar World Cup. They want to ensure fans have “more show” and aren’t left short-changed by stop start matches that are halted for injuries, cards, the awarding and preparation of taking penalties or even protracted goal celebrations.
It was a similar approach in Russia in 2018 but there has been a marked increase in stoppages already in this edition.
So far every game at the World Cup has included stoppage time that runs to more than 10 minutes as referees stick to a pre-tournament edict to make sure fans are getting plenty of “active play”.
More than 14 minutes was added to Wales’ 1-1 draw against the USA, 27 minutes to England’s win over Iran and 12 minutes to the Netherlands’ win over Senegal.
The reason is Fifa have told officiating teams to stringently add minutes lost to goal celebrations, VAR checks, substitutions, injuries and other stoppages.
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It is a different approach to that applied in the Premier League, where stoppages for celebrations aren’t generally taken into account.
Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the Fifa referees’ committee, signposted the issue to fans on Friday when he addressed the media at a pre-competition press conference.
He said: “We want to respect those who are watching the watch and the three million who will attend in Doha, and billions watching on television. We have recommended to our referees – and it’s something not new, because we did exactly the same in Russia – to be very accurate in calculating the time to be added at the end of each half to compensate the time lost to specific kind of incident.
“What we want to avoid is to have a match with 42, 43, 44, 45 minutes of active play. This is not acceptable.
“Whenever there will be an incident like an injury treatment, substitution slot, penalty kick, 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. 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.”
Collina said the move was to benefit supporters. “The purpose is to offer more show to those who are watching the World Cup,” he said.
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