A crackdown on time-wasting and dissent as well as a much stricter policing of the bench and technical areas are at the heart of new refereeing guidelines that will be in force for the start of the football season.
From the first Championship game on Friday – which sees Sheffield Wednesday take on Southampton live on Sky Sports – added minutes at the end of EFL and Premier League matches are now expected to frequently run into double digits, as they did at the last World Cup in Qatar.
One match official has told Sky Sports News it will now be a rarity if a top flight game lasts less than 100 minutes.
More accurate game time
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During the World Cup long periods of stoppage time were added to games – and we can expect the same in domestic football this season
Officials have become increasingly concerned with statistics that show how little the ball has been in play in professional matches in England, with averages last season of just 48 minutes in League Two, 50 minutes in League One, 52 minutes in the Championship and just under 55 minutes in the Premier League.
More time will be added on too for goal celebrations, which officials feel have become lengthier and more elaborate.
Referees will now be obliged to specifically time how long the game is stopped before the re-start for game interruptions, such as a goal, a substitution, injury, or preparations for a free-kick.
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In further attempts to speed up play, the EFL will now have the multi-ball system for all matches, as is already the case in the Premier League.
Elsewhere, referees will be tasked with being more robust in penalising “clear and impactful actions” that waste time – those that differ from the obvious act of kicking the ball away.
EFL and Premier League football will now bear much more resemblance to the Qatar World Cup, where England vs Iran had 24 minutes of added time and the game lasted a total of 117 minutes. There were, however, two concussion-related injuries, eight goals and 10 substitutions in the 90 minutes.
New measures introduced to help improve behaviour of players, managers and coaches as well as addressing the issue of football tragedy abuse
A new technical area code of conduct and increased financial penalties for repeat offenders
Academy scholars to undertake refereeing courses to improve their education into officiating
Stadium bans and potential criminal prosecution for tragedy abuse
A pilot scheme to rehabilitate young offenders to educate them about impact of their behaviour on others
A three-point plan to tackle unwanted spectator and participant behaviour across steps 5 and 6 of the National League
Leniency on “physical” challenges
On the pitch, as an attempt to allow the game to flow better and reduce stoppages, a higher threshold will be applied to “contact” between players – meaning there should be fewer free-kicks awarded for incidents which last season might well have been penalised for being overly physical.
However, as per the existing referee guidelines, any challenge deemed “careless” will be deemed a foul, any which are “reckless” will receive a yellow card, and any player who “endangers the safety” of an opponent will be sent off.
Dissent
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When more than one player approaches the referee, at least one of those players, and potentially more, will now be shown an automatic yellow card
The threshold for a player to be shown a yellow card for dissent will be reduced this season.
Whenever more than one player approaches the referee, at least one of those players, and potentially more, will be shown an automatic yellow card. Practically, any player that runs from a distance to approach the match officials will be booked.
Policing the technical area
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The behaviour of managers and their back room staff will come under greater scrutiny, with an automatic yellow card if there is ever more than one coach in the technical area, and harsher penalties for managers that leave their technical area.
Aggression from coaches, towards match officials or opponents, will be routinely met with a red card, and any club official sent off will no longer be allowed to watch the game from the stands. Instead, they must be out-of-sight of the pitch.
Points deductions and bodycams – FA to crackdown on grassroots poor behaviour
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A detailed shot of a referee bodycam is seen prior to being tested by referees of the North Riding FA
Repeated offences against referees, and other unacceptable behaviour in the grassroots game, will see teams deducted points from their league tally in the coming season.
The measures are part of the new Participants Charter, which has been created jointly by the Premier League, FA, EFL, Women’s Super League and Championship, the National League, PFA, LMA and PGMOL.
It comes as the FA extends its trial of the use of bodycams for grassroots referees for season 2023/24 to try to combat poor behaviour in the amateur game.
Referees’ chief Howard Webb says standards of behaviour at all levels have been “allowed to decline” over a period of many years. “This has had knock-on effects,” Webb says. “We’ve seen copycat behaviour at grassroots levels, and that’s resulted in people either quitting as referees or not choosing to take up the whistle.”
The bodycams were introduced in four areas in January – Middlesbrough (North Riding), Liverpool, Essex and Worcestershire, with referees reporting marked improvements in player and fan behaviour.
The cameras are the size of a matchbox, and while they are powered on for the full 90 minutes, they are only turned to record if the referee feels threatened or becomes aware of abuse or violence on the pitch. The camera settings mean that, once the record button is pressed, it also saves the previous 30 seconds of action.
“We were the first county in the country to go live with it, in February,” Ross Joyce from North Riding FA told Sky Sports News. “It’s been great. We’ve had a real buy-in from not just the referees, but the clubs, players and leagues. We are 110 games in now, and the results have been really positive.”
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Sophie Wood, a referee with the North Riding FA, wears a referee bodycam as she officiates the Manjaros Langbaurgh Division One match between Redcar CF and The Southern Cross
The FA say that the cameras have been the perfect deterrent, because no referee who has worn one has yet felt the need to activate the camera and record any incidents.
“The key things for us is that referees feel safer” Joyce says. “They have that safety net, should they feel they need it. We have had no activations of the bodycams, because there has been no significant behaviour, threats or assaults towards officials – that would suggest that they have worked.
“For example, I was at a game where a penalty wasn’t given, one of the players was heading towards the referee to give some ‘verbals’, but his team-mate said to him ‘hey, he’s got a camera on!’ and the player walked away. So I think there’s been a lot of de-escalation of incidents in that sense.”
Bodycam footage is expected to provide key evidence, if the FA is to bring charges against individual players or clubs for repeated bad behaviour.
Point deductions will apply to clubs at Step 7 and below of the men’s game, and clubs across Tier 3 and below in the women’s pyramid, which commit cumulative incidents of serious misconduct, such as acts of discrimination and assault or attempted assault, physical contact or attempted physical contact against a match official.
Deductions will range from three to 12 points depending on the number of breaches within 12 months of the team’s first offence and severity of the case(s).
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