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Topics: UEFA, Champions League, Europa League, Europa Conference League, Football, Premier League, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal
Marcus Chan
Topics: UEFA, Champions League, Europa League, Europa Conference League, Football, Premier League, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal
UEFA director of football Zvonimir Boban has labelled the new Premier League rule change as 'absurd' - suggesting it won't be adopted in European competition.
Ahead of the 2023/24 season, the Premier League and the EFL decided to follow FIFA's approach to added time in the 2022 World Cup.
Officials have been adding on the exact time lost to goal celebrations, substitutions, injuries, penalties and red cards to the 90 minutes.
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As a result, we have seen a huge amount of stoppage time in recent Premier League matches.
However, this rule change has led to criticism from UEFA.
As per The Times, Boban said: “It’s absolutely absurd. Regarding player welfare, it’s some kind of small tragedy or big tragedy because we are adding almost 12, 13, 14 minutes, which are very tough minutes to play.
“I can speak from my experience, especially as a midfielder — when you get tired, it’s the last 30 minutes of the game. And then somebody comes and adds another 15, 12, 14 minutes of the game.”
He added: “How often we have spoken critically about the calendar and too many games. We are not listening to players and coaches. In England you know something even more than us because you have more games.
“And now we add to them, probably six, seven minutes more per game – over 65 games that is almost 500 minutes more per season. That is six games. It’s crazy. It’s too much so we will not do this. We will follow our guidelines.”
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His comments suggest the rule will not be adopted in the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League this season.
Last season in the Champions League, the ball was in play for more than 60 minutes on average.
UEFA’s head of referees Roberto Rosetti said: “We started to work on this more than five years ago.
“There is something more important than the accuracy of additional time. Why do people like the Champions League so much? Because it’s intensive, it’s fantastic, the players never stop.
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“We tell our referees to speed up the restart of play instead of this [focus] on stoppage time."