Injured players could be forced to leave the pitch for an extended period to combat time wasting

Martin Macdonald

• 24 Feb 2026 06:01 CST
• 4 min read

Nieuws

Players who receive treatment for an injury could be forced to leave the pitch for at least one minute under proposed new FIFA rules.

Over the last two decades, time-wasting has become more and more prevalent and there are several rules already in place to reduce it, such as clocks on how long a goalkeeper can hold the ball.

Within the last 10 years in the Premier League, the ball has been in open play for around 55 minutes of a match, with the rest of the minutes being made up by stoppages due to free-kicks, corners, goals and, of course, time-wasting.

We have seen incidents this season of players going down injured, seemingly fine, in order to disrupt the tempo of a game. At the moment, there is no designated time given from FIFA for a player to leave the pitch after receiving treatment from the physios, though the Premier League has adopted a 30-second rule of their own volition since 2023/24.

That time could double, under new proposals from the International Football Association Board (Ifab), which has a meeting this Saturday.

For the 2025 Arab Cup, FIFA trialled a new system that saw players leave the pitch for two minutes after receiving treatment.

Legendary referee Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, explained the rules before the tournament.

"A new refereeing rule will be tested during the Arab Cup: injured players who receive treatment will have to leave the field and remain outside for two minutes. Two exceptions: the goalkeeper, of course, and a player who is injured and treated after the opponent who injured them has been cautioned or sent off."

Any proposals of a two-minute wait in the Premier League have been shot down, BBC Sport reports, so there is a feeling that one minute is seen as a compromise between 30 seconds and two minutes.

IFAB need to tread carefully on this one as it's tough to know sometimes which players are legitimately injured and who is just time-wasting. There is, of course, the worry that a team could concede while they have an injured player waiting to come back on.

That happened last season when Brentford scored against Manchester United when Matthijs de Ligt was receiving treatment for a cut.

Earlier this season, Fulham drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace. Jean-Philippe Mateta gave the hosts the lead with 39 minutes on the clock with Fulham at a disadvantage as defender Jorge Cuenca was off after receiving treatment for a head knock.

Fuham boss Marco Silva demanded an amendment to the rules.

There are exemptions to the rule as a player will be allowed to stay on if the opponent that injured them receives a card, while goalkeepers also don't have to go off.

What are the rules on head injuries?

The regulations on head injuries were changed before the start of the current campaign. They read:

"Where a player has a suspected head injury and the referee stops the game, the official will immediately signal for a doctor or physio to enter the pitch in order to promote player welfare. The player will need to leave the pitch for further assessment and remain on the touchline for a minimum 30 seconds after play has restarted."

Before the rules were implemented this season, Chief Refereeing Officer for Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), Howard Webb stated:

"What we've said this year is that if a player presents the signs to the referee of having a potential head injury, usually that will be because the player goes down holding their head.

"If the referee decides to stop the game mainly because of concerns around it being a head injury or potential head, then we'll get the doctor or a physio on straight away.

"We want to make sure the player gets assistance if they've got a genuine head injury, but also there was some feeling as well that too many times, players were going down holding their heads. The game was then being interrupted as a result of that and the player was absolutely fine.

"That's to protect a player safety, but also hopefully it'll deter people from potentially gaming it a little bit by getting the game stopped."

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