Premier League and EFL officials will add World Cup-style amounts of injury-time to matches as part of directives for new season; a higher threshold for contact between players will be applied; players will be booked for crowding a referee and managers must stay in their technical area
Monday 31 July 2023 14:35, UK
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
A crackdown on time-wasting and dissent as well as a much stricter policing of the bench and technical areas are at the heart of new refereeing guidelines that will be in force for the start of the football season.
From the first Championship game on Friday — which sees Sheffield Wednesday take on Southampton live on Sky Sports — added minutes at the end of EFL and Premier League matches are now expected to frequently run into double digits, as they did at the last World Cup in Qatar.
One match official has told Sky Sports News it will now be a rarity if a top flight game lasts less than 100 minutes.
Officials have become increasingly concerned with statistics that show how little the ball has been in play in professional matches in England, with averages last season of just 48 minutes in League Two, 50 minutes in League One, 52 minutes in the Championship and just under 55 minutes in the Premier League.
More time will be added on too for goal celebrations, which officials feel have become lengthier and more elaborate.
Referees will now be obliged to specifically time how long the game is stopped before the re-start for game interruptions, such as a goal, a substitution, injury, or preparations for a free-kick.
In further attempts to speed up play, the EFL will now have the multi-ball system for all matches, as is already the case in the Premier
Read on skysports.com