New Rule

[Worthingexile]

I love the idea- a touch of X factor!

But think of the 'lee Johnson' character, the villain in many people's eyes; he would be sleeping on bus shelters and rooting through the bin for old kebabs regardless of how well he played!

Edit- sleeping in bus shelters (he'd never get on one!)

[Maltshoveller]

Easy. The first fan presses the 10K button and the second the £10 button, and Marv gets the median of the fans' valuations.

So if any fans have any brains they would only press the £10 button

even if he had a blinder

Would save our club £millions and for doing that The club would slash ticket prices for us!!!!

[Portland Bill]

Time wasting of any sort should be a booking.

Except when WE are one up and we do it

[Portland Bill]

Refs and Linesmen to be allowed to smack anyone who mouthes off at them.

This :-)

The officials should be given 100% respect by the players and managers.

Rugby players act the way footballers should do.

[City1970]

This :-)

The officials should be given 100% respect by the players and managers.

Rugby players act the way footballers should do.

Agree, Rugby players respect the officials but beat the hell out of each other. Footballers should take note.

[Harry]

I have an irrational obsession with time-wasting and particularly what deserves a booking and what doesn't. Most time-wasting bookings are given for goalies at goal kicks and fullbacks at throw-ins. Consider this :

Scenario 1 - 15 minutes have been played and Stoke have a throw-in on the left wing. Rory Delap jogs the width of the pitch from right back/wing, picks up a towel, dries the ball, takes his position and finally launches the ball into the box for another ugly Stoke goal. The length of time the ball was out of play whilst Delap went through his motions was 25 seconds. For some reason, this is allowed by the referee and not considered time-wasting.

Scenario 2 - 5 minutes left and Arsenal are getting a result away at Barcelona. Bacary Sagna picks up the ball for a throw-in and feigns a couple of times before finally releasing. The ref calls him up for time-wasting and books him. The ball had been out of play for 15 seconds.

Basically, late on in a game, it can appear as if time ticks away much quicker when you're losing, and the refs seem to fall for this too and are quick to get their cards out for circumstances late in a game when the same offence (or worse) is not punished early in a game.

Anyway - There are a few time-wasting annoyances in this thread. I have a way of resolving all time-wasting issues.

Introduce an independent time-keeper. Every time the ball goes dead (goal kick /throw-in/free-kick), the clock runs for 10 seconds. If the ball is not back in play after 10 seconds, the time-keeper pauses the clock.

For Free-Kicks where the defence want to construct a wall, the clock can run for 20 seconds before being paused.

This way, no-one will ever get booked for time-wasting ever again.

This may come across as rather sad of me, but I conducted a little experiment this evening whilst watching the u-21 final between Spain & Italy.

I acted as the independent timekeeper based on my suggestion in the post above.

I allowed 15 seconds for every free kick, throw-in, goal kick.

I allowed 25 seconds for a free kick given when the ref also made a booking.

I allowed 30 seconds for a substitution.

I allowed 45 seconds for a penalty.

I allowed 45 seconds for kick-off to resume following a goal.

So basically, the clock would continue to run for the above allotted times, and anything above this, the clock was stopped.

For example, if a free kick was given on 25:00, I would let the clock run to 25:15. If play had not recommenced at this point, I stopped the clock.

So if play didn't resume until 25:30, I essentially added 15 seconds to the game.

The 1st half consisted of 4 goals, 1 penalty & 2 bookings, and yet, by my method I only had to add 3 minutes and 6 seconds (the real ref allowed 1:05 additional time).

The 2nd half consisted of 2 goals, 1 penalty, 5 bookings & 6 subs - by my method I only had to add 4 minutes 36 seconds (the real ref allowed 3:50)

So basically, by my method, the game would have lasted 97 mins 42 seconds.

The actual game lasted 94 mins 55 secs.

Although there were no bookings for time-wasting in this game, the point is that my time-keeping rule would essentially mean that time-wasting is never allowed to occur, no-one will ever be booked for it, and the supposed detrimental effect to the flow of the game and the additional time is actually pretty negligible.

There, FIFA - get onto it.