The USA Team at the Qatar, FIFA Soccer World Cup 2022

Can somebody explain how extra time works? Specific questions:
  1. Who calculates the extra time: the referee or an official off the pitch?
  2. What does the referee (or official off the pitch) take into account when he adds time? Are there clear rules about what constitutes a stoppage that should not count towards the 45 minutes for the half?
  3. Why is the amount of extra time always a round minute (and if the referee/official has to round, does he round up or down)?
  4. Why does the game not end precisely on the rounded final minute, and what are the rules that govern when the referee blows the whistle once the rounded final minute has been reached?
  5. Why do they not add time during the extra time period if there is a stoppage?
In regard to question 5, in the England/France game, 9 minutes (from memory) were added to the second half. At about the 5-minute mark, an England player went down injured. Play stopped for about 3 minutes. Those 3 minutes were not added to the 9. That seems to make little sense. By the time play started again, only 1 minute was left, not enough time for England to score the goal it needed. Making even less sense seemed to be that England made no attempt to get the player up on his feet and the game going again as those precious minutes ebbed away. Is there a logical explanation for all this?
 
Can somebody explain how extra time works? Specific questions:
  1. Who calculates the extra time: the referee or an official off the pitch?
  2. What does the referee (or official off the pitch) take into account when he adds time? Are there clear rules about what constitutes a stoppage that should not count towards the 45 minutes for the half?
  3. Why is the amount of extra time always a round minute (and if the referee/official has to round, does he round up or down)?
  4. Why does the game not end precisely on the rounded final minute, and what are the rules that govern when the referee blows the whistle once the rounded final minute has been reached?
  5. Why do they not add time during the extra time period if there is a stoppage?
In regard to question 5, in the England/France game, 9 minutes (from memory) were added to the second half. At about the 5-minute mark, an England player went down injured. Play stopped for about 3 minutes. Those 3 minutes were not added to the 9. That seems to make little sense. By the time play started again, only 1 minute was left, not enough time for England to score the goal it needed. Making even less sense seemed to be that England made no attempt to get the player up on his feet and the game going again as those precious minutes ebbed away. Is there a logical explanation for all this?
All from "The Football Handbook":
  1. Who calculates the extra time: the referee or an official off the pitch? - The referee determines the amount of stoppage time in a football match, based on the amount of playing time that has been lost in the half of the match.
  2. What does the referee (or official off the pitch) take into account when he adds time? Are there clear rules about what constitutes a stoppage that should not count towards the 45 minutes for the half? - See 1, the referee decides
  3. Why is the amount of extra time always a round minute (and if the referee/official has to round, does he round up or down)? - Once the referee decides on the appropriate time, he communicates this to the fourth official. The fourth official displays the time allowed, which is the minimum amount of minutes.
  4. Why does the game not end precisely on the rounded final minute, and what are the rules that govern when the referee blows the whistle once the rounded final minute has been reached? - See 3.
  5. Why do they not add time during the extra time period if there is a stoppage? - From what I'm seeing in the World Cup, I believe they do, at the 15 and 30 minute points.
You didn't ask, but I sense the question is in your mind: Is stoppage time really accurate? - The stoppage time gives rise to a fair amount of controversy in games. Mistakes are likely to occur as it is entirely the referee’s decision. Hence, the stoppage time is not always accurate but is usually a fair reflection of the game.

All that being said, in this World Cup more stoppage time seems to be added than in previous competitions. I think this is excellent, and should negate the efforts of time-wasters to run down the clock. I hope it will be more automated in the future, taking the decision out of the referee's hands, since the quality of the non-automated decisions that are down to the referee is absolutely abysmal compared to the automated VAR decisions (like offside, ball out of play, etc).

I shall take a step back to graciously allow someone else to answer Ronnie's question :cool: The WP posted a correction to the article today I believe, essentially undermining the whole purpose of the article, though their retraction looked a bit odd to me.
 
All from "The Football Handbook":
  1. Who calculates the extra time: the referee or an official off the pitch? - The referee determines the amount of stoppage time in a football match, based on the amount of playing time that has been lost in the half of the match.
  2. What does the referee (or official off the pitch) take into account when he adds time? Are there clear rules about what constitutes a stoppage that should not count towards the 45 minutes for the half? - See 1, the referee decides
  3. Why is the amount of extra time always a round minute (and if the referee/official has to round, does he round up or down)? - Once the referee decides on the appropriate time, he communicates this to the fourth official. The fourth official displays the time allowed, which is the minimum amount of minutes.
  4. Why does the game not end precisely on the rounded final minute, and what are the rules that govern when the referee blows the whistle once the rounded final minute has been reached? - See 3.
  5. Why do they not add time during the extra time period if there is a stoppage? - From what I'm seeing in the World Cup, I believe they do, at the 15 and 30 minute points.
You didn't ask, but I sense the question is in your mind: Is stoppage time really accurate? - The stoppage time gives rise to a fair amount of controversy in games. Mistakes are likely to occur as it is entirely the referee’s decision. Hence, the stoppage time is not always accurate but is usually a fair reflection of the game.

All that being said, in this World Cup more stoppage time seems to be added than in previous competitions. I think this is excellent, and should negate the efforts of time-wasters to run down the clock. I hope it will be more automated in the future, taking the decision out of the referee's hands, since the quality of the non-automated decisions that are down to the referee is absolutely abysmal compared to the automated VAR decisions (like offside, ball out of play, etc).

I shall take a step back to graciously allow someone else to answer Ronnie's question :cool: The WP posted a correction to the article today I believe, essentially undermining the whole purpose of the article, though their retraction looked a bit odd to me.
Thanks. I guess I will have to look up the football handbook. I think I am little the wiser. It seems totally arbitrary.

In a practical sense, what actually happens on the pitch? The referee must have a stopwatch counting down from 45 minutes. He presumably stops it whenever something happens that in his opinion should not count towards the 45 minutes. The 45 minutes from kickoff will expire some minutes before his stopwatch gets to (or close to) zero. So, when he sees on the clock that 45 minutes have expired since kick-off, he has to communicate an amount of extra time to the fourth official. Yet, at that precise point, he can't yet know that there won't be another injury stoppage between the 45th minute since kickoff, and his stopwatch getting to zero.

Alternatively, is his stopwatch counting upwards? That is, does he switch it on when something happens that in his opinion should not count towards the 45 minutes? And thus, when he sees on the big scoreboard that 45 minutes have elapsed, he looks also at his stopwatch to see a number that the stopwatch has grown to? That would make more sense perhaps. But even so, why is that number always round? And why does the game not necessarily end once that round number is reached?

I realize I wasn't clear in question 5. I should have put "during injury time".

I re-ask my question about what happened during injury time of the second half of the England France game: why wasn't time for the injury that occurred during injury time added to the original amount of injury time and (regardless of the answer to that question) why didn't the England players pick the player up and get things moving once he went down. It seems to make no sense at all to be pressing desperately for a goal during the first 5 minutes of injury time and then just more or less give up because one of your players has gone down and the time it takes for him to get up will consume most of the remaining time left.

It's not that I'm question the accuracy. I'm questioning the very basis on which the time is calculated.
 
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The FIFA World Soccer Cup 2026 USA/CANADA/MEXICO..!!
Guess what Cities..?
 
Gianni Infantino ,The President of FIFA, has expressed that when he quits Mauricio Macri should replace him..!
 
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