How 60-minute matches could make football last longer

Reducing the length of football matches to 60 minutes is one of several "radical" ideas currently being considered in an effort to increase the sport's popularity.

The idea appears in a new strategy document presented to the International Football Association Board (Ifab).

The Play Fair report has three aims, reports The Guardian: "To improve player behaviour and increase respect, to increase playing time and to increase fairness and attractiveness."

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Among the ideas that are up for discussion are:

• Allowing players to pass to themselves from free kicks.
• Scrapping the rule that says goal kicks must leave the penalty area.
• Allowing free kicks to be taken with a moving ball.
• Awarding penalty goals for handballs on the line.
• Only finishing the game when the ball is in touch.
• Docking points from teams whose players mob referees.
• Stopping play once a penalty is taken and restarting the game with a goal kick if it is missed or saved.

Former Premier League referee David Elleray, who is technical director of Ifab, told The Times that the proposals amounted to "a quiet revolution aimed at getting football even better".

One suggestion that could be "embraced", says the Times, is "the idea of having a stadium clock linked to the referee's watch so that the crowd can be aware of exactly how much time is left, and when he has stopped his watch, with officials asked to be stricter on time-wasting and add on time for things such as lengthy goal celebrations".

The idea of reducing matches to 60 minutes is aimed at increasing the amount of "effective playing time" (EPT) during which the ball is in play.

At present the ball is usually in play for less than an hour of a 90-minute game. The Ifab document states that by reducing the match to an hour and stopping the clock every time the ball goes out of play "there would be less point in players wasting time".

It would also mean that "in a competition every club would play exactly the same amount of EPT".

The idea has generated much discussion among current and former players. The BBC says that former Chelsea stars Gianfranco Zola and Petr Cech are both supportive of the 60-minute match idea.