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I meant to post on this the other day and forgot, anyway here it is.
Listening to the much respected Keith Hackett on Football Heaven, the talk of time wasting on taking a throw in came up.
Keith immediately jumped in and announced a new rule which will be brought in for the start of next season where, once a player has total control of the ball in their hands on the side line, they will only have 5 seconds to release the ball.
Failure to do so and the Ref will give the throw in to the opposition.
So glad this will be brought in so to speed the game up and keep it quickly flowing.
Can see us being badly affected with this. Take Raffs for instance, he treats a ball like he's hatching an egg and takes an age to throw a ball in.....
Another great point was mentioned and suggested by a Millers fan? who had text in. His suggestion was that Refs start to lay down a marker where the ball went out, like they do when dealing with free kicks. This would stop all the 5-10 yard advantages teams take by moving up the line taking a throw in. Great idea!
What do you all think to this?
Last edited by Brin; 28-03-2026 at 04:44 PM.
The football authorities keep coming up with these "ideas" which are supposedly aimed at cutting down time wasting.
Why don't they just do the bleedin' obvious and have a clock that stops at appropriate times like they have in rugby?
Five second rule good idea - the time to take free kicks uses too much time also.
When does the clock stop though, everytime the ball is out of play?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football...s/cj41ge0yg0jo
It says in the link that, on average, for a 90 minute game of football, we usually get just shy of 60 minutes of action. So stopping the clock (at corners, throw ins and free kicks) would mean games finishing at around 5:30 on a Saturday.
Back to the OP, I'm not keen on the 5 second throw in rule. If the idea is to stop time wasting then I wonder how effective it would really be when teams can take as long as they like deliberating who actually takes it.
Last edited by Heliosphan78; 29-03-2026 at 09:20 AM.
The 5 second rule probably won't work because it's almost certainly too short a length of time.
If referees apply it rigidly we'll end up with the ball being passed from one side to the other a few times before the throw eventually gets taken.
At least there should be no more of the towel nonsense.
Rugby games don't take an inordinate length of time to complete even though the clock stops when the ball is out of play so why should football?
People complain about time wasting, the lack of real action and then dispute the time added on by the referee after the 90 minutes is up.
A clock that is visible to the crowd would surely help to sort all that out.
I've just read this...
The 5-Second Countdown: If the referee deems a player is taking too long to take a throw-in, a five-second countdown will start.
Which makes it sound more sensible.