Not Just For Kicks

Qatar 2022 holds the record for the lengthiest World Cup ever. And official timekeeper Hublot was in the thick of the action.

-  Alvin Wong

THERE IS STILL time; there is no more time. It doesn't matter which side you support in a tightly contested football match. As the clock winds down to the end of a game, the emotional divide is always extreme and the anxiety, insufferable.

And in the sapping heat of World Cup 2022 in Qatar, fans had plenty of time to chew down their fingernails. The average active time that the ball was in play at this World Cup was between 55 and 67 minutes. In comparison, the active playing time for some games at previous World Cups was as little as 52 minutes.

"Think of a match with three goals scored. A celebration normally takes one, one and a half minutes. So, with three goals scored, you lose five or six minutes. What we want to do is accurately calculate the added time at the end of each half," explained Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee.

World Cup 2022 certainly felt more entertaining - and fair. Stoppages during the matches due to time-wasting, referees deliberating over video replay checks, treatments for injuries and, of course, wild celebrations, were all accounted for and added to the stipulated game time.