Premier League's new timewasting rules deliver results: ball-in-play time hits five-year high
New directives aimed at killing timewasting are changing the rhythm of the English game
The International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body that oversees the laws of the game, decided enough was enough with the creeping menace of timewasting. Using this summer's World Cup as a testing ground, it introduced new directives designed to strip players of the chance to run the clock down — and the Premier League agreed to adopt them from the start of the 2026-27 season.
What the new rules actually say
The headline change is a five-second rule on both throw-ins and goal-kicks. It is not a literal five-second deadline to execute the restart, but from the moment a referee suspects a player is taking a liberty, they can begin counting down — throwing a hand in the air in the manner of a wrestling referee urging a groggy competitor back into the ring. There is also a new substitution rule: if a player takes longer than 10 seconds to leave the pitch, the replacement must wait an extra 60 seconds before entering play.
The measures appeared to bite at the 2026 World Cup. Average time on goal-kicks and throw-ins dropped from 27.7 and 15.7 seconds respectively at the 2022 tournament to 23.7 and 13.2 seconds in 2026. Four goal-kicks were turned into corners for over-length, while 12 throw-ins were overturned. Just one substitute was made to wait the full 60 seconds.
The Premier League picture after five matchdays
We are only five matchdays into the 2026-27 campaign — 50 games played — but with a giant international break looming, the early numbers make for revealing reading. We are yet to see a goal-kick turned into a corner in the Premier League. The closest came via a different rule: in Leeds United's game against Crystal Palace last weekend, referee Adam Herczeg, making his Premier League debut, ruled Palace goalkeeper Walter Benítez had held the ball longer than the allotted eight seconds in open play, awarding a corner. That eight-second rule arrived last season and was enforced on eight other occasions then.
There has been just one instance of a substitute being made to wait 60 seconds this term, and again it involved Crystal Palace. During their 4-1 home defeat to Manchester City in late August, Anan Khalaili was judged to have taken too long leaving the field, so Óscar Mingueza was held back a full minute. It seemed a touch harsh given Palace were 3-1 down, but rules are rules.
Four players have been punished for dawdling over a throw-in and conceding possession back to the opposition: Jorrel Hato for Chelsea against Fulham, Neco Williams for Nottingham Forest against Aston Villa, Riccardo Calafiori for Arsenal against Sunderland, and Olivier Boscagli for Brighton against Arsenal. From 50 games, that is a modest tally.
More football, measured precisely
Opta's ball-in-play data, tracked since 2015-16, tells the bigger story. After MD5, the average share of time the ball has been in play in 2026-27 is 57.7% — the highest since 2020-21 (58.0%). In raw terms, that is 56 minutes and 35 seconds of in-play action per game, the third highest on record behind 2023-24 (58:11) and 2024-25 (56:59). Last season managed just 55:23, so we are getting over a minute more football per match.
There is a neat knock-on effect in added time. Average stoppage time is down to 8:04 per game — the lowest in the Premier League since 2021-22 (7:29).
Restarts are getting quicker across the board
Throw-ins are being taken in 15.3 seconds on average, down more than two seconds from last season's 17.8 and the lowest since 2016-17 (15.2). Projected across last season's 13,615 throws, that saving would amount to over nine and a half hours less waiting time across a campaign — almost 90 seconds per game.
Goal-kicks are down to 27.7 seconds each, the lowest average on record. Last season was the first in this dataset to creep above 30 seconds (30.4); the early weeks of 2026-27 have sliced almost three seconds off. Across last season's 5,901 goal-kicks, a repeat would save more than four hours and 40 minutes — about 42 seconds per game.
Substitution breaks are quicker too: 64.3 seconds on average this term, down from 76.1 last season and the lowest since 2021-22 (63.4), before the 2022-23 introduction of five substitutes inflated the figures.
Intriguingly, delays with no new rule attached have also fallen. Corners are down from 36.1 to 33.9 seconds (lowest since 2023-24); free-kicks from 33.3 seconds (lowest since 2020-21); direct free-kicks from 74.5 seconds (lowest since 2021-22, over 11 seconds quicker than last season); and penalties from 117.4 seconds — the lowest since 2021-22 and around 47 seconds faster than the 164.7 of 2025-26, albeit from only nine spot-kicks so far.
Building on a wider trend
The feeling of a faster, more open game has been gathering for weeks. On 13 September, The Guardian reported that the five-second countdown at goal-kicks and throw-ins, with the threat of a restart reversal, had 'forced teams to abandon timewasting', with Opta data showing average ball-in-play time rising from 55min 23sec to 57min 14sec and delays falling from 29.2 to 26.7 seconds. And on 21 September, the same outlet painted the 2026-27 Premier League as 'wilder than ever' — goals per game up, long-range strikes flooding in, counterattacks back in fashion and set-piece goals drying up as new managers reshape the division.
Whether the early pace holds once the sample grows remains to be seen. But five matchdays in, the verdict on the new directives is unambiguous: the Premier League is playing more football, and wasting less of it.