UEFA label Premier League rule change as ‘absurd’, it will not be used in the Champions League

UEFA director of football, Zvonimir Boban has labelled the new Premier League rule change as absurd.

The officials have been adding on the exact time lost to goal celebrations, substitutions, injuries, penalties and red cards to the 90 minutes.

As a result, we have seen a huge amount of stoppage time in recent Premier League matches.

“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.”

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.

“We tell our referees to speed up the restart of play instead of this [focus] on stoppage time.”