Premier League players are seeing more yellow cards than ever due to time-wasting, but figures show that that doesn’t solve the problem. So what is there left to do?
Premier League matches are longer than ever, but we are seeing less football. How is that possible? The 2022/23 Premier League season has the highest average match duration in the last 10 years, but the actual in-play time is also the lowest in the last decade.
“The same discussion fans have about time wasting, they have during the Premier League and PGMOL meetings”, said an anonymus source from the Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the body in charge of referees in the top division of English football.
Nowadays, games are longer because there is more added time due to VAR and the new 5-substitutions rule. But the truth is that there’s also more time being wasted due to players being booked for time-wasting. Ironic, but true.
But what is the referees’ point of view on this? Suresh Pulandaran, who has been a referee for over 30…
