Berlin (dpa) – The world football association has contradicted speculation about an allegedly planned change in the season.
“Following some of the reports and rumors circulating today, FIFA would like to clarify that there will be no changes to the rules governing the duration of football matches at either the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 or any other competition,” FIFA said in a statement.
According to the reports, FIFA President Gianni Infantino would consider extending the playing time from 90 to 100 minutes. Infantino had recently emphasized with a view to an examination of the effective playing time that viewers and TV stations would pay for 90 minutes and not for 50 minutes of actual playing time.
According to a study by the CIES Football Observatory based in Neuchatel/Switzerland, the ball actually only rolls 60.2 percent of the time in the Champions League. In the Bundesliga it is 58.5 percent. According to “Corriere dello Sport”, Infantino is said to have met with the head of the FIFA Referees Committee Pierluigi Collina to discuss the implementation of the idea.