Glenn Gibbons: Bureaucrats wrong to be playing with the rules

Published on Wednesday 11 February 2009 21:57

THE agenda for the annual congress of the International Football Association Board, to be held in Newcastle, County Down, later this month, reinforces the long-held and widespread notion that bureaucrats tend to indulge in excessive dabbling for the sole purpose of persuading the rest of us that their jobs are utterly essential.

Among the myriad proposed alterations to the Laws of the Game to be deliberated by the eight delegates – one from each of the four British associations and four from Fifa – two appear to be prime examples of change for its own sake, with no apparent benefit to either the game itself or those fans who pay to watch.

The first is that, in the event of a match requiring extra time to determine a result, the permitted maximum number of substitutes will be increased from three to four. This would, it is claimed, "be an advantage to teams" because of the increasing number of matches being played and the consequent demands on players.

The members of IFAB seem not to have grasped that "the increasing number of games being played" applies only to that elite band of clubs who compete in Europe and that it was Uefa's finance-driven motives which brought the change in format of the European Cup that produced the top-heavy Champions League and Uefa Cup. On their way to the final of the latter competition last season, for example, Rangers had to contest a ludicrous 19 games.

In England, the formation of the Premier League 15 years ago actually brought a reduction in the number of fixtures, a First Division that housed 24 teams cut to 20, with a consequent contraction in matches from 46 to 38. When the European Cup contained only national champions – rather than three or four representatives from the biggest countries – and only nine games were required of the winners, it was not only less exhaustive for players, but more exciting and more authentic as a championship.

In addition, even four subs will still leave seven players in any team playing the full 120 minutes of a match with extra time. The only way truly to eradicate the perceived "problem" of physical demands on players is to allow – as in basketball and American football – clubs to field two entirely different teams in the course of a game. Now, that would be a problem.

The second curious proposal is that the maximum duration of the interval be extended from 15 to 20 minutes. This is based on the faintly preposterous basis that, in stadia around the world nowadays, there are often long walks between the field and the dressing-rooms. As Fats Domino once sang, Ain't That A Shame?

Few who attend football these days will be able to recall when an interval was last confined to the permitted 15 minutes. Stoppage time at the end of the first half of a match seems to rob referees of their sense of timing and it is now generally accepted that the break will extend beyond the permitted limit. Three o'clock kick-offs which once ended on the stroke of 4.40pm (ten-minute interval) now rarely finish before 4.55pm.

But the problem of "the long walk" could be removed simply by insisting that the players remain on the field (seated if they wish), sucking an orange or sipping a drink during half-time. There are several eminently sensible reasons for complying with this suggestion. Not least of these is that it would save their legs and, of much more benefit to spectators, would allow the authorities actually to revert to the original ten-minute break.

This would also give supporters the opportunity to see their manager at work – how he goes about motivating his players for the great second-half push – and, at a stroke, eliminate the incidence of flying tea sets and punch-ups that seem to be a commonplace inside the dressing-room. It will be recalled that Phil Brown, the Hull City manager, conducted just such an experiment on Boxing Day, a mere seven weeks ago. Piqued by his team's dreadful first-half performance at Manchester City – already 4-0 down in a match they would lose 5-1 – Brown kept his players on the field throughout the interval, allowing the fans to witness his tongue-lashing and finger-wagging "pep talk".

Whatever embarrassment the players may have experienced, it seems not to have done irreparable damage to dressing-room morale. In the weeks since, Hull have registered victories over Newcastle and Millwall that have kept them in the FA Cup and taken points from Chelsea and West Brom that have helped maintain their place fairly comfortably above the relegation zone in the Premier League.

Of course, one drawback for clubs of a shortened half-time break would be the probable drop in takings at the catering outlets. That may do little for their revenue, but a reduction in intake of the kind of food normally available would do no harm to their fans' health.