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 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: Riccardo Calafiori for Arsenal against Sunderland, and
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