Time Wasting Bellends

I am absolutely sick and tired of the time wasting that goes on in professional football.

Yesterday I settled in for a day of Premier League football on Amazon Prime, but the occasion was spoilt by teams time wasting throughout. Firstly, I want to make it clear that all teams time waste when they are winning, even Bolton on the rare occasion we are in front. But yesterday seemed to highlight this huge problem in football that rarely gets addressed.

Ok, Southampton were level at 1-1 with Spurs and down to 10 men, so it's obvious they are going to try and hang on for a point. But in the second half of 45 minutes I would be amazed if the ball was in play for more than 15 minutes. Every 30 seconds there seemed to be a throw in that took forever, a free kick that took forever, or a player seemingly half dead only to recover when enough time had been used up.

And then later on Leicester did a similar thing to hang on to a 1-0 lead over Liverpool. I don't blame them though, points are more important to clubs than performances.

The referees could easily sort this out, but they don't. There seems to be an unwritten rule that if there's not much time wasting they add on 3 minutes. A bit of time wasting it's 4 minutes, and if there's absolutely loads of it (even if someone grew a beard during the delay) it's 5 minutes. When has someone ever added on 20 minutes like they bloody should do?

I've actually just done a bit of research and the average time the ball has been in play this season (110 games so far) in the Premier League is 55 minutes. 55 minutes FFS!! Teams are wasting 35 minutes every match. Fans are being screwed!!

This is a fooking outrage. If you went to watch a film at the cinema and they only showed half the film you'd be furious and demand your money back. If you visited a restaurant and paid for a 3 course meal but they only served 2 courses you'd be seething and demand a refund. If you paid a hooker for sex in advance and she left before you had your happy ending you'd cry and cry and return to your blow up sheep.

Something has to be done. It's clear refs can't handle this simple task so let's give someone the job of timekeeping and have two halves of 35 minutes each. Every time the ball is out of play or the ref stops the game, the clock stops. Instantly there is no more time wasting. No more feigning injury. No more subs with 2 minutes left. And the fans are guaranteed over an hour of football even if the game doesn't finish until 6pm.

I'm sure you agree with me, who wants to watch a 90 minute game where the ball is only in play for 55 of those minutes?

I am linking this post to the Premier League.

I've always said timekeeping should be taken out of the hands of the referee. A Rugby League style system, where the timekeeper is in the stands, and stops the clock during any halt in play would be a much fairer way of going about it.
Having seen the VAR decisions at Southampton the other day, I'm not sure refs can be trusted with anything, let alone timekeeping.

NFL - as the clock only runs when the ball is in play, they can faff about as much as they want in between but it's on their own time. Downside is that a 60 minute game can take 3 or 4 hours to watch when you attend.

It's great to know the football powers take note of what I say.

The Lincoln game was a pleasure. No time wasting and still plenty of time added on to take account of goals, subs & corners etc.

Already some managers and players are having a moan though, United's Raphael Varane going as far as saying the added time is "damaging the game" and "longer games are damaging to players". No you bellend it's not a longer game, football has always been a 90 minute game but the modern footballer has previously spent 30 minutes of that time rolling around on the floor for no reason.

It seems the players always want more money for playing less football. In League 1 last season the ball was only in play an average of 50 minutes per game. 50 minutes!!

I hope this new added time rule is kept permanently.