Reader Mark Spahn also sent me a link to this post, which is about the NFL, but which also has some comments about timekeeping in soccer (comments 165, 194, 196, 203, 214, 216). The time in soccer is kept by the referee, and only he knows how much time is actually left. That is, when there are injuries, the time is stopped, but the fans don’t know how much time this has taken till the end of the half or the game when a fourth official raises a sign showing how many extra minutes will be added. But if an injury happens during this “injury time,” then the fans are in the dark because the fourth official doesn’t raise a second sign showing how much more injury time there should be.
All of this is quite ridiculous, but there is a rationale behind it, which is “Keep things simple.” This is also behind the reluctance to have video cameras on the goal line. Once you do that, and once you have fancy timekeeping equipment, then there is the question of what to use in those countries of the Third World that are too poor to afford them. There are plenty of money problems in soccer in the Third World as it is without adding to them.
Anyway, referees started changing their practices a couple decades ago regarding the end of the half or the game, and I find it somewhat irritating. It used to be that if time ran out before a corner kick could be taken, tough luck, but now the ref will allow time to continue until something definite happens on that corner kick (that is, a shot is taken or it is headed out). Likewise, they wait until a goal kick has been taken, and then blow the whistle in the middle of the ball’s trajectory. This leads to the ridiculous situation in which a goalie is trying to waste time and so is slow to take the kick, not realizing that the ref is just waiting for him to kick it so he can blow the whistle. Sheesh.
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