Football's lawmakers' new idea: time is off for time wasting on throw-ins and goal kicks
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Reading Time: 2min | Fri. 31.10.25. | 14:18
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) discussed introducing a countdown to avoid the new trend, which has become apparent in the English Premier League recently
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) had discussed the possibility of limiting how long a player can spend on a throw-in to stop time wasting.
At a meeting of the IFAB's Football and Technical Advisory Panels (FAP-TAP), they acknowledged the somewhat visible increase in long throws in the English Premier League this season, which has led to additional delays.
This isn’t a dig at Arsenal (Honestly) but is this a good thing for football. Brentford wasted 10mins of the 90 taking throw ins the other day. I’ve just worked on Lecce v Napoli and Napoli wasted 10mins at the end of the game playing for throw ins to kill time 😱 pic.twitter.com/F7GWIPjixp
— Don Hutchison (@donhutch4) October 28, 2025
Moreover, the same countdown could be applied for goalkeepers to prevent them from taking additional time over goal-kicks, and to avoid wasting more time.
It follows the logic of a law change the IFAB already introduced for goalkeepers this year, imposing an eight-second limit on holding the ball in open play. Once the count is started, the referee makes a signal when the last five seconds have begun and if the goalkeeper fails to release the ball, a corner is awarded.
On Saturday, Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher was sanctioned with a corner against Liverpool deep into stoppage time when he held the ball for 13 seconds.
While the mentioned countdown for throw-ins and goal kicks remains an area for debate for now, FAP-TAP did support a change to the VAR protocol that would allow a reprieve when a second yellow card is wrong.
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