| The game is getting longer Raphael Varane and Kevin de Bruyne are on either side of the Manchester divide but they agree on one thing: it is all getting a bit too much. And no one’s listening. “Why are our opinions not being heard,” Varane asked on social media. What happens when we play a lower team who keep wasting time, wondered De Bruyne. Both Varane, a former international (we will get to why in a bit), and De Bruyne were talking about what is becoming a huge source of discontent for players: added time. Time was when football was played over 90 minutes, give or take a couple. I remember murmurs of disbelief in the makeshift press area in Ludhiana when referee K Sankar (of the 2002 World Cup fame) gave seven additional minutes in the 2007 Federation Cup final. Time was when a goal in the 101st minute would be understood to have been scored in extra-time. It is still that – time beyond 90 minutes, that is – but not part of additional 30 given to decide games from open play.  Leandro Trossard celebrates his Community Shield equaliser (Source: AP) So, when Leandro Trossard equalised in the Community Shield it was part of the second half meaning it was 90+11 and not the 101st minute. And there were still two minutes to go before the game shifted to penalties. The England-Iran game in the 2022 World Cup had 27 extra minutes. (It also meant I couldn’t get a seat at Lionel Messi’s first press conference and got a ticking-off from the office.) Chuffed by added time being “positively received” at the World Cup, IFAB, the board the decides laws of the game, has asked for more accurate calculation and implementation around the world. That has got to Varane and he also has Pep Guardiola in his corner. “From the managers and players, we have shared our concerns for many years now that there are too many games, the schedule is overcrowded, and it's at a dangerous level for players' physical and mental well-being,” Varane has said “Despite our previous feedbacks, they have now recommended for next season: longer games, more intensity, and less emotions to be shown by players.” 102 minutes, the new normal Guardiola agreed and took a dig at the “big brain guys who decide these things." Who knows, given the additional time for celebrating goals, maybe we will be playing till 9am the next day, the Manchester City manager said after the Community Shield. On an average, games in the Premier League will be a shade less than 102 minutes, the league has predicted. It was 98 minutes and 26 seconds in 2022-23. Maheta Molango, chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, the world’s oldest sports trade union that looks after the interest of footballers in England and Wales, termed the situation extreme. “..If you don’t do something we’re going to be in trouble.” Players could even strike work, Molango has said. “I’m thinking if we play Sevilla in Olympiakos (in the UEFA Super Cup) on Wednesday (August 16) and have 15-20 extra minutes and then play on Saturday again (v Newcastle), it’s like two times extra time. We’ll see how it goes but it doesn’t make any sense,” said De Bruyne, five days before a new Premier League season. Read our build-up here, here and here. FifPro, the world players’ body, has worked out that the extra minutes could add up to three more games per season. It has calculated that Marcus Rashford has played double the minutes Wayne Rooney did when he was 25. And that is one of the reasons why Varane quit international football last February. The constant grind of games was for the France central defender like being a washing machine that never stopped, he told Canal+. “We have overloaded schedules and play non-stop. Right now, I feel like I’m suffocating and that (Varane) the player is gobbling up (Varane) the man,” he had said. Collina’s point This is a difficult situation. Pierluigi Collina, head of referees at FIFA, pointed out that playing time went up to 67 minutes at the last men’s World Cup. In some games in Russia, it would drop to 52 minutes. Stoppage time in Doha was 10 minutes and 47 seconds on an average, up from 6.30 minutes in Russia. Injuries, goal celebrations (a longer celebration means less playing time and puts the team that has conceded at a disadvantage, said Collina), talking to referees, VAR and substitutions contributed to that. In 2022-23, the ball was in play for 55.7% of the time, the lowest in a decade in the Premier League, ‘The Athletic’ has pointed out. On an average, 75.9 seconds were lost between a goal scored and play restarting, the article said. Goal celebrations through the season amounted to 119 minutes and 32 seconds for Arsenal, the most, and 105 minutes and 45 seconds for champions City, the second most, according to The Athletic. Longer games are good news for television and those who pay for a ringside view of things. But at the elite level where players can feature in 70 games (Bruno Fernandes in 2022-23) or 75 in the case of Pedri between September 2020 and 2021, games dragging to over 100 minutes through a season can be a problem. The Indian problem Usually, the season is a lot shorter in India and players across the system are starved of games. Imagine then, what could happen if like 2022-23, the season begins in August and, for national team players, continues till July. A new season began this month with the 132nd Durand Cup and there could be same players involved in the Asian under-23 qualifiers, AFC Cup and the Asian Games in September. It could mean six games and travel in 18 days between September 6-24. Add 10 minutes of stoppage time to each game, often in enervating conditions, and it is not difficult to understand that these elite athletes, many of them fabulously rich, are not cribbing at extra work. The players, Karim Bencharifa loves to say, are the main actors. From scheduling World Cup games at noon, wringing Santos and Brazil’s dream teams dry for a few dollars more to this, not always does it feel like they are the ones driving the sport. | 
