Premier League, EFL games set to run for at least 100 minutes in new rules

The new Premier League season is less than two weeks away, and ahead of the new campaign, football fans can look forward to a number of radical changes to some of the rules of the game.

There will be a particularly keen interest on curbing time-wasting, with match officials set to handle things slightly differently from previous campaigns.

As reported by Sports Brief in May, there were several clubs from the 2022/23 season who were notorious for wasting time during matches.

Stats from Opta Analyst broke down clubs whose matches had the ball in play for the least number of minutes, and Newcastle were the leaders in that category.

As per the stats, with the ball in play, the Magpies spend the least time with the ball on the field with an average of 52 percent - translated to 51 minutes and 15 seconds.

On the other end of the data, Manchester City had the highest percentage of the ball in play among all other teams in the top flight with 61.8%, while Liverpool comes in second with 58%.

Rule changes

As reported on Sky Sports, it will now be extremely rare for a Premier League game to go less than 100 minutes.

This is because referee will be tasked with timing how long play has been stopped, and the total minutes will end up being added as stoppage time.

The publication also reports that there will be attempts to speed up play in matches, and this will entail havIng a multi-ball system for all the matches in the EFL.