Gary Neville has backed a drastic possible change to a football rule that Premier League referee chief Howard Webb admits is ‘never implemented’.
The issue of goalkeepers time-wasting came up in an episode of The Overlap involving former referee Webb and pundits including ex-England defender Neville.
The current law forbids goalkeepers from holding onto the ball for longer than six seconds but players rarely get punished for such incidents.
Referees have the power to award the opposition team an indirect free-kick from where the goalkeeper was stood but Webb believes this is an unsatisfactory outcome.
Instead, the Premier League are considering implementing a rule change which would see referees award a corner to the opposition team if a goalkeeper is deemed to be time-wasting by holding onto the ball for too long.
Football’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), recently said referees were reluctant to enforce the six-second rule as an indirect free-kick inside the box would provide ‘too great an advantage, as the chance of scoring is high, whereas they had no possibility of scoring when the offence occurred, as they did not have possession of the ball.’
In-direct free-kicks from inside the box can also create awkward situations where defenders essentially have to create a defensive wall on the goalline.
But Manchester United legend Neville believes something needs to be done as goalkeepers are largely getting away with this kind of time-wasting.
Addressing Webb, Neville said: ‘Howard, the biggest delay in the game is when goalkeepers take longer than the six seconds with the ball.
‘We talk about delaying the game, a lad like Declan Rice kicked the ball away a touch and to be fair I get the rules, but that’s wasting a millisecond.
The possible new rule
The referee will start counting the eight seconds when the goalkeeper has clear control of the ball with the hand(s)
– The referee will use a raised hand to clearly show the countdown from five seconds to zero (as per the four-second count in futsal and beach soccer)
– The corner kick/throw-in resulting from an offence will be taken from the side of the field of play closest to where the goalkeeper was positioned when penalised
– The goalkeeper will be warned for the first offence and cautioned for any subsequent offence(s) It could see a situation whereby supporters engage with the countdown once the referee has raised him arm.
‘Then you’ve got a situation where goalkeepers are holding the ball for nine, ten seconds, sometimes 13 or 14 seconds – they’re wasting six or seven seconds every time.
‘That never gets pulled up and that rule is still in. It drives my crazy.’
Webb responded: ‘It is [still a rule], and always has been. You don’t see it implemented anywhere, do you?
‘You’ve all played abroad and internationally and you don’t see it anywhere do you?’
Asked to clarify the rules in regards to time-wasting and specifically delaying the restart, which has caused much controversy this season, Webb added: ‘We ask our referees to try to identify situations that are clear and deliberate and impactful on the ability of the other team to restart the game.
‘There was a comparison to what [Arsenal’s Leandro] Trossard did in the Man City game and what [Liverpool’s Dominik] Szoboszlai did in the Nottingham Forest game.
‘They’re really incomparable in terms of the impact. One happened before a Man City free-kick just before half-time, Trossard prevented City from restarting the game quickly if they had wanted to.
‘The other one, Liverpool were losing at home to forest. Szoboszlai kicks the ball away but it wastes his own time, it would be crazy to caution him at that point, he was doing Forest a job for them.
‘I don’t expect referees to be consistent every time they cross the white line, they’re human beings making a judgement in a split decision. Sometimes they will get it wrong.
Webb then addressed the issue of goalkeepers wasting time and discussed the possible change to the laws.
‘On the goalkeeper issue by the way, in Premier League 2 they’re trialling something,’ he said.
‘If goalkeepers hold the ball for eight seconds the other teams gets a corner. So after three seconds the referee counts down, if the keeper is daft enough to keep hold of it, the whistle blows and it’s a corner.
‘That avoids that ridiculous situation of indirect free-kicks in the box and players running out to try and block.’
Reacting to the possible change, Neville said: ‘I like that. I think we all like that.’
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