Napoli president wants 25-minute halves and sin bins for divers introduced to football

Martin Macdonald

• 14 Apr 2026 11:30 CDT
• 4 min read

News

Outspoken Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis wants to drastically reduce the length of football matches.

Due to the emergence of social media sites like TikTok which have videos of a shorter length, a narrative has been created that younger people don't have the patience to watch 90-minute games compared to previous generations.

Highlights videos that were once comprehensive have been shortened significantly, in general across the board, as clubs and leagues look for social media hits.

With the introduction of VAR, too, matches are much longer in length due to stoppages as the likes of red cards and offsides are determined by via officials watching replays.

As football looks to evolve - or devolve, depending on your stance - De Laurentiis wants shorter matches.

“Soccer will lose the younger generation,” he told The Athletic.

“The matches are too long."

As for 15-minute half-time breaks, he says:

“Imagine the stupidity! You think my grandchild of six years old, who knows everything (about football) because he plays with the PlayStation… he will escape… and you think you will recoup him after 15 minutes? Never! Because he goes in his room. He starts to play FIFA.”

He believes halves should be cut by 20 minutes.

“Number one: I will reduce from 45 minutes each (half) to 25 minutes,” he said, while highlighting the possibility of a rugby-style clock that only runs when the ball is in play as opposed to the referee adding on time at the end of each half.

De Laurentiis is also taking inspiration from rugby when it comes to punishments as he wants a sin bin introduced instead of yellow and red cards.

“You cannot stay down on the field and play around like an actor!

"NO — you will go OUT! What I will do also — I will never use a red card and a yellow card. I would say ‘YOU — get out for five minutes (for a yellow card)!’ And ‘YOU — get out for 20 minutes for a red card!’"

Fundamentally, he believes football needs more goals, and a could starting point to achieve that would be taking away offsides for miniscule offences.

“Another thing!" he continued.

“Too few goals! So it is not spectacular. You must make more goals. And to make more goals, you must change the rules. You cannot (cancel) a goal just for a few millimetres… The offside must be changed, a lot.

“The new generation is our gold. If we don’t please them, we will die. You will not have the same participation as you had in the last 100 years.”

Should footballers older than 23 not play for their national team?

De Laurentiis is never shy about giving his opinion on the state of the game and even previously suggested that players older the age of 23 should not play for their national team.

For as long as club football and international football has co-existed, there have been disagreements over player commitments.

As professional footballers, players are largely paid by their clubs and although they previously received money for international football as well, they don't receive salaries anymore.

Bonuses and other incentives are not uncommon, but clubs are responsible for paying players to make a living.

“Europe must change because the time has come,” De Laurentiis told Class CNBC.

“The football chiefs are reluctant to change because they fear losing their seat. On which they sit very, very comfortably. But the time has come to change both the game’s rules and the leagues’ formats.

“There are too many games, and I think footballers will no longer be able to play 50, 60 or 70 games [per season].

“They haven’t understood that there should be a cap for international players. After you’ve turned 23, you can no longer go with the national team, because you have to discover the new ones.

“If you even play those who are over-30, and they get injured, you are kicking the domestic leagues in the shins, and there’s no respect for these leagues.

“Furthermore, there isn’t sufficient fee for the loan of a player who, for 12 months, is paid by clubs. This should also be regulated.”

The relationship between clubs, UEFA and FIFA is arguably at an all-time low as new fixtures are seemingly being added to the calendar on a yearly basis.

Within the past few years, UEFA has introduced the UEFA Nations League during international breaks, while FIFA relaunched the Club World Cup with a new 32-team tournament which took place in the summer of 2025.

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