How long can a keeper hold on the ball for; and how many players missed the WC through injury?

 

 

• We don’t need Fifa = and the sooner they are thrown out, the better
• These days in football, cheat and you pay damages: Everton ordered to pay £40m

By Tony Attwood

From this summer onwards, goalkeepers are able to hold onto the ball for eight seconds before releasing it to another player.   Previously, the amount of time was six seconds.  And as a punishment for any goalkeeper who goes beyond the eight seconds, the opposition will get a corner, not a free kick.

There is a double point in this.  First, the six seconds were felt to be that bit too short given that the keeper not only has to pick up the ball and look around, but also the players who were attacking need a couple of extra seconds to get back out of the penalty area and be ready to defend or receive the ball from the keeper’s kick out of defence. 

 Second, referees were very reluctant to call an offence of holding onto the ball for too long given that it resulted in a free kick from within the penalty area.   Two seconds extra might not seem much, but in effect, it does increase the amount of time the keeper has to hold the ball by a third.  And then there’s another point….

The other point – the giving of a corner as a punishment for an offence – has been brought in because referees reported that they did not penalise keepers for holding the ball for too long for the penalty (an indirect free kick whjich could be taken within a yard or two of the goal line) was too harsh and led to ludicrous jostling in the penalty area – which other changes have been deseigned to avoid.

So a corner it is for holding onto the ball for too long, and I rather suspect we might see a few of these given in the early weeks of next season before either referees get fed up with the idea or keepers become more alert.

Of course, what would also be fun would be for the crowd to start counting down the eight seconds, which could also get at the visiting goal keeper.   But I am not sure most members of most crowds actually do keep up with the changes to the law.

And especially in this World Cup, where for people in Europe some games are happening partway through the night.

Now of course, this is a problem for audiences, for although there are some who will stay up through the night to watch their country play, for the most part, this is only something that relates to their own country.   So yes, I suspect a lot of Scottish fans would have stayed up to 4 am to watch their match all the way through, but I am not sure that many people in Europe who have no Scottish heritage will have done that.

This awareness also combines with the fact that, quite obviously, the number of people attending the games has been massively lower than Fifa predicted, or, much more worrying, reported.  And the Fifa excuse about them all being in the bars has just made a laughing stock of the Americans who used it, trying to suggest that all football fans were drunks.

And there is a further worrying point here.  If FIFA is seriously telling us that the reason the seats were empty was that all the fans were in the bars, then the next step is that they will be saying the seats are empty because the Europeans were all drunk, and respectable supporters did not want to sit next to drunks.   So it is, as ever, the fans’ fault.    Which is what we always get with Trump and Infantino.  IT IS NEVER THEIR FAULT.

The problem the organisers of the tournament now have is a multiple one: obviously low crowds in some games generate utterly silly excuses coming from the Presidents and their cronies, and a schedule for the games that fits in with American but not with the rest of the world.   And not to labour the point too much, most of the potential audience is in the rest of the world.

Now the Telegraph has a headline that reads  “If you cannot get excited about a World Cup, what’s the point?” and really that does raise a point.  I occasionally watch international matches on TV but really only to see how Arsenal players are doing – and to make sure a) they are not getting injured and b) if they are injured, they are taken off, not allowed to play on because the international manager knows the long-term fitness of the player is not his concern.

Maybe I am alone in not having much interest in international games, but my lack of interest doesn’t affect everyone else –  I simply don’t bother to watch.   But international games do affect my enjoyment of watching Arsenal if an international game results in an Arsenal player getting injured and not being able to play at the start of next season.

Maybe it is not everyone’s view, but it still seems a logical and reasonable view to me.    Sporting News listed 17 players who will miss the World Cup through injury sustained before the competition began.  There will be another load of players who will miss the start of next season because of injuries sustained during the World Cup.   That’s the problem we get with all the year-round football.