The time-wasting substitution must be stopped

The scandal of time-wasting substitutions goes on.

The winning team - as soon as the board goes up at 90 minutes showing how many minutes will be added on - immediately get their substitute ready. When the ball goes out play they wait until the last possible moment before telling the fourth official that they want to make a substitution and then the board goes up with the number of player to be taken off. He's usually on the far side of the pitch and facing the other way. When he, with some apparent amazement, realises his number his up, he turns to face his own fans and applauds them before beginning to walk off the pitch. When encouraged by the referee to get a move on, the player makes a jogging motion (usually on the spot) for a second or two. After about a minute the player is finally off the pitch and the substitute can come on.

For some reason the TV cameras always show this farce in close-up. It would be much more revealing to show it in long-shot to demonstrate just how slowly the substituted player is moving.

The whole thing is a time-wasting disgrace.

Notwithstanding this, the winning team manager, having wasted a minute of added time, will then point animatedly at his 'watch' the instant the added time is up.

And TV commentators are fooled for some reason. "Well, the time is up," they'll say, "We're into time added on to added time," as if they can't quite understand where the time has come from.

Of course, the referees never add enough time on.

In European or international games it's even worse, as the referees add NO extra time to cater for this. In fact, they always blow early.

We're being cheated out of footballing action. When is this scandal going to be stopped?

Shameful ballboy incident is easily solved

Eden Hazard will probably have re-run the disgraceful incident with the ballboy through his mind many times as he struggled to get to sleep last night. What was he thinking - trying to kick the ball from under the ballboy who was lying on top of it?

Of course Hazard was trying to get the ball back so that play could restart, saving a few precious seconds in Chelsea's quest to overturn a 2-0 deficit and reach the Capital One League Cup Final. With a only a few minutes of the match left, a Chelsea triumph was looking less and less likely, so his gesture was futile, and led to him being sent off, with a suspension to follow. What other repercussions there might be we have yet to see.

What on earth was the ballboy doing, grabbing the ball as it went off for a goal kick to Swansea and then falling to the ground and lying on it to prevent the anxious Hazard from getting it? Sadly - and let's not for one moment try and deny this - he was aping the actions of professional footballers in trying to waste time for his beloved Swansea City, as they - ultimately successfully - tried to win their way into their first major Cup Final. I'm sure the ballboy won't be as ashamed as Hazard of his actions but they will no doubt bring him a certain notoriety and a few more twitter followers. Ten minutes of fame.

The reason for all these shameful actions is because the clock runs when the ball is out of play in football. The solution is easy and I have addressed it before in this blog (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5550910041293158157#editor/target=post;postID=8598919878957640325). Put a clock on the action; stop it when the ball's out of play.

Then Hazard could smile at the ballboy and trot back leisurely to wait for the goal kick.

And everyone's happy.

Stop the clock when the action stops

As we enter the group phase of the Champions League, it reminds me that we will see the standard "European one minute" added on at the end of the first half, and the "European two minutes" at the end of the second. Unless there is an outstandingly long stoppage, I guarantee that is what you will see in whatever matches you watch over the next two nights.

Is it something to do with TV schedules? I don't know, but I have certainly noted this standardisation over the past few seasons.

It is, of course, ridiculous as six second-half substitutions (by no means unusual) should mean an extra three minutes, let alone the odd injury, and - even more so - the thinly disguised time wasting by whichever team thinks it's in the strongest position.

As spectators we rarely get our money's worth of real action. Proper time keeping is long overdue.

Let's put a stopwatch on the real action. As in many American sports, let's stop the clock when the ball is dead, and run it on when the ball's in play. Let's then say we'll have 30 minutes of action per half - which would take about 50 minutes to an hour.

We'd see about the same amount of action, but we'd know exactly what we were getting and would stop feeling cheated.

Start the clock now!