MLS lobbying Ifab to explore stopping clock for pauses in play | MLS

Major League Soccer has held discussions with the International Football Association Board, the global soccer regulator, about testing the use of a stopped clock during matches.

A continuously running clock, which does not stop for fouls, set pieces, injuries, etc., is fundamental to the way time has been respected in sport almost since its inception. However, the use of a clock that stops is common in other American sports like basketball and gridiron football. It was even briefly used in MLS itself from its inception in 1996 until the end of the 1999 season, and is still used in American college football.

Paul Grafer, vice president of competition for MLS, told the Guardian that the reintroduction of a stopped clock is “something we talk about a lot” when discussing the future of the game.

“When are we going to move away from all these interim procedures and see if we can address the issue of game spirit and match manipulation by asking the referee to have a [stopped] clock?” says Grafer. “We are open to testing worldwide and working with Ifab.”

In a statement, Ali Curtis, MLS executive vice president of sports development, confirmed to the Guardian that the league has had “preliminary conversations with Ifab about future areas of innovation, including concepts such as a stopped clock, increased transparency around timekeeping and other measures designed to improve consistency and fan understanding.”

Ifab recently debated using a clock stopped in 2017, deciding instead to change the rules in more subtle ways. The organization has introduced measures to combat time wasting in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, with referees adding unprecedented stoppages in play at the end of matches.

Sources within Ifab told the Guardian this week that the organization had shelved these initial stop-clocking efforts, fearing that the unpredictable length of matches could create problems for broadcasters. Others at Ifab expressed a more philosophical concern: the idea of ​​a 90-minute match was simply sacrosanct.

A source within Ifab said Tuesday that she believes MLS faces an uphill battle in terms of implementing significant timing changes.

“[Ifab] authorizes and introduces trials if there is broad interest in a topic,” the source said. “This one has very little support at the moment.”

MLS has in recent years become something of a testing ground for rule changes and technologies that have ultimately been adopted globally. This summer’s World Cup will feature new measures to combat injury- and substitution-related time loss, measures that were first introduced in MLS Next Pro, the MLS development league. The rules were then adopted by MLS itself before Ifab added them to the laws of the game.

The league was also among the first in the world to work with Ifab on the implementation and testing of VAR, having partnered with the USL lower division to do so in early 2017. The league eventually adopted the technology in all matches ahead of the 2018 season.

Any timing adjustments would likely follow a similar path.

“We’re still in conversation about potential trials and rules, so this would be a matter where we formally submit a proposal and look to accept it,” Grafer said. “Our standard operating procedure is to test these new rules in Next Pro. It’s the perfect incubator for these types of opportunities. We’ll then look at the data and see if it’s good for the game.”

The current conversation surrounding the use of a stopped clock is not new in MLS circles, or even internationally. Upon its inception in 1996, MLS not only stopped the clock during breaks in play, but also made the clock count down instead of up, another convention still used in college soccer in the United States. In its planning stages before the inaugural season, MLS also considered using a 60-minute iteration of the stopped clock and went so far as to try it in the USISL’s lower division in 1995.

MLS removed its countdown clock after the 1999 season as well as the 35-yard shootout, which the league had previously used to decide tie games in the regular season. “Our core audience has spoken,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber, who was in his first season in the league, said at the time. “And we listened.”

Nearly three decades later, elements of the league’s old timing standards are returning.

“These discussions [with Ifab] are exploratory,” Curtis said. “But they reflect a broader commitment across world football to examine how the sport can continue to modernize while preserving what makes football unique.”