Longer World Cup games are giving us taste of what’s to come in

The 2023-24 Premier League season will feature lengthy periods of added time as we are currently seeing at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Down Under but also at the FIFA 2022 World Cup for men in Qatar last year. It is part of a move to combat time-wasting tactics which will see players penalized more often if they try to do so. Games running 90 minutes plus 10 additional minutes or more will become part of the new normal under the incoming rules which the World Cup is already doing a good job preparing you for.

We explain why this is happening:

What does this change mean?

Moving forward, players are less likely to waste time because it will not — in theory — run down the clock effectively as it has done in the past. Players kicking the ball out of play and simulating injury, two popular and traditional time-wasting tactics, should become a thing of the past. This is because those things will no longer eat into the 90-minute total running time of a soccer game thanks to the new rules which will now factor those periods of time into the overall duration of fixtures.

Where and when will this be happening?

It is already happening at the international level, but you will now start seeing it in the…