More Football, Less Timewasting: The New Premier League Rules on Throw-Ins and Goal-Kicks Are Working

New laws were brought in this summer to try and speed up restarts in games. Have they worked? After five matchdays of the 2026-27 Premier League season, we look at the data to see.

We all love rules, right?

Well fine, maybe not love, but sometimes they can change things for the better.

Football follows trends, and a rather annoying one in more recent years was an apparent increase in timewasting, with players finding new innovative ways of running the clock down, testing the patience of referees and fans alike by trying to either break up the momentum of an opponent, or make sure as little football is played as possible in the pursuit of grinding out a result.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB), the organisation that oversees the laws of the game, decided enough was enough, and used this summer’s World Cup to introduce new directives to try and limit the opportunities players would have to take time out of a game.

That included a five-second rule on both throw-ins and goal-kicks. Not a literal five-second deadline to take them, but from a point where the referee suspects a liberty is being taken, they can start counting down by throwing their hand up in the air like it’s the WWE and Stone Cold Steve Austin is struggling to get back into the ring to avoid being counted out.

There was also a new rule for substitutions, whereby if a player takes longer than 10 seconds to get off the pitch, the player coming on must wait an extra 60 seconds before being allowed to enter the play.

It seemed to have an impact, too. The average time taken on goal-kicks and throw-ins went down, from 27.7 and 15.7 seconds respectively at the 2022 World Cup to 23.7 and 13.2 seconds at the 2026 tournament. The average time of substitution stoppages barely changed, though (from 65.6 seconds in 2022 to 65.5 in 2026).

At the 2026 World Cup, there were four occasions when a goal-kick was turned into a corner after taking too long, while 12 throw-ins were overturned for the same reason. And there was just one instance of a substitute who had to stay off for 60 seconds. So, in the main, the warnings were heeded. Or the laws weren’t being implemented properly.

Either way, the new laws were generally seen as a success, and the Premier League agreed to introduce them from the start of the 2026-27 season.

We are just five matchdays in (50 games played), but with a gigantic international break to navigate, we thought it was a perfect time to see what impact the new rules are having in England’s top flight.

We are yet to see a goal-kick turned into a corner in the Premier League. The closest we’ve come is a goalkeeper holding onto the ball for too long in open play, which also leads to a corner being awarded. That came in the Leeds United vs Crystal Palace game last weekend when referee Adam Herczeg, making his Premier League debut, decided Palace goalkeeper Walter Benítez had held onto the ball for longer than the allotted eight seconds. That rule was introduced last season, though, when it was enforced eight other times.

There has also been just one occasion when a substitute coming on has had to stay off for 60 seconds due to the player coming off taking too long this season, and it was also Crystal Palace.

During their 4-1 home defeat to Manchester City in late August, Anan Khalaili was judged to have taken too much time going off, so Óscar Mingueza was made to wait a full minute to come on. It did seem a bit harsh to issue a punishment intended to stop timewasting to Palace, given they were 3-1 down at the time, but rules are rules.

There have been four instances of a player being punished for taking too long with a throw-in and conceding it 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.

That doesn’t seem too bad from 50 games, so are the rules really having an effect on timewasting?

Here at Opta, we have ball-in-play times for the Premier League since the start of the 2015-16 season, and can see exactly how much football has been played, as well as how long various actions are taking on average.

After MD5, the average time the ball has been in play in Premier League games in 2026-27 is 57.7%. That’s the highest since the 2020-21 season (58.0%).

As for the overall ball-in-play clock, we have seen 56 minutes and 35 seconds of in-play action per Premier League game this season, which is the third highest on record (after 2023-24 – 58:11, and 2024-25 – 56:59). It was just 55 mins, 23 seconds last season, so we’re currently getting over a minute more per game.

* – After Matchday 5

Interestingly, there does seem to be a knock-on effect in terms of added time. We are getting eight minutes and four seconds of added time per game on average this season, which is the lowest in the Premier League since the 2021-22 campaign (7 mins, 29 secs).

As for the average times to restart play, they seem to be down across the board, suggesting the new rules are indeed having an impact.

Throw-ins are only taking 15.3 seconds to be taken on average, down over two seconds per throw from last season (17.8 secs). It is the lowest average on record since the 2016-17 campaign (15.2) and, as the below graph shows, a big drop-off from last season.

That might not seem a lot, but when you factor in how many throw-ins there actually are, if the same rate is maintained and the same amount of throws are taken as last season (13,615), that would extrapolate to over nine and a half hours less of waiting for throws to be taken across the campaign. On a per-game basis, it is almost a minute and a half less (88.5 secs).

Goal-kicks are also being taken noticeably faster. At 27.7 seconds each this season, it is the lowest average on record. Last season was the first time the average restart of play from a goal-kick had nudged above 30 seconds (30.4) in that time, but it has reduced by almost three seconds per goal-kick in the early weeks of this term.

In total, 5,901 goal-kicks were taken last season, so again, if we get the same number this season, that saving of 2.7 seconds per goal-kick would extrapolate to over four hours and 40 minutes of time saved across the campaign. Per game, it is almost 42 seconds less.

As for subs, we only have that data back to the start of the 2020-21 season, but there has been a drop there, too. We can only measure by breaks for substitutions, rather than for each individual sub, as managers often choose to bring on more than one at a time.

Last season, every sub break in play on average took 76.1 seconds. So far this season, that’s down to 64.3 seconds. That’s the lowest it’s been since the 2021-22 season (63.4 secs), but the introduction of five subs in 2022-23 was undoubtedly a factor in that rising in recent years. It’s interesting to see it basically back down to pre-five-sub numbers for the time being.

Something else that stands out is that other delays have also dropped in the early weeks of this season, despite there not being any specific new rules to make it happen.

The average time to take a corner had been creeping up in the last two seasons, especially with all the emphasis on set-piece coaches and carefully rehearsed routines, but it has dropped from 36.1 seconds last season to just 33.9 this season, the lowest it has been since 2023-24.

Free-kicks are being taken after 33.3 seconds on average, the lowest since 2020-21, while direct free-kicks are taking 74.5 seconds to be hit, the lowest average since 2021-22, and over 11 seconds down on last season.

* – After Matchday 5

Interestingly, penalties are being taken a lot quicker, too. This could even out as the weeks and months go on – there have only been nine penalties taken in the Premier League this season – but the average delay for a penalty is currently just 117.4 seconds, the lowest since the 2021-22 campaign, and around 47 seconds quicker than last season (164.7). It would take just a few lengthy VAR checks to see that creep up, though.

It’s still early days, and we’ll revisit this later in the season, but the new anti-timewasting directives do seem to be having an impact.

What will we do with all this spare time? Erm, probably just watch more football, to be honest.

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