So, what’s going on?

First, it’s nothing new. This practice has been adopted by FIFA since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But isn’t the Olympics the responsibility of the International Olympic Committee? What does FIFA have to do with this?

Although the Olympics are not organized by FIFA, it is the highest football authority that coordinates the holding of the Olympic tournaments, including selecting the referees for the matches.

Concerned about the pace of matches and the time the ball is in play, FIFA recommends that the ideal time for the ball to be in play is 60 minutes. The total time of an official football match is 90 minutes, plus extra time. Since the game is timed continuously, without interruptions for fouls, substitutions or medical attention, when the regular time is up, the refereeing team informs the additional time on a board.

What is happening at the Paris Olympics is the continuation of FIFA’s experiment to combat anti-play, popularly known as “waxing” or “catimba”. That basic messing around by players.

How is this experiment done?

The refereeing team keeps track of the game as usual, using the clocks of the main referee, his assistants and the video assistant referees, the VAR. At the same time, a parallel timekeeping is being carried out, with the marking being interrupted whenever the ball is not in play. For each substitution, it is recommended to add 30 seconds of play, for example. If both teams make five substitutions, the recommendation is to add five minutes of play.

At the Olympics, the refereeing team checks the extra time, which is interrupted whenever the game stops, and then compares it with the regular running timer. The difference in time between them will determine how many minutes of added time the match will have.

For example: the referee’s stopwatch shows 90 minutes of running time. The refereeing team that makes the call by stopping the stopwatch at each interruption in the game informs that the time the ball has actually been in play is 78. There would be 12 minutes left to reach 90. These 12 minutes are added to the additional time indicated by the field referee.

All technical committees of the teams participating in the men’s and women’s Olympic football tournaments were informed of this procedure before the ball started rolling.

At the 2022 World Cup, Brazilian referee Raphael Claus set the record for extra time in a World Cup match, adding 14 minutes at the end of the first half and 13 minutes and eight seconds after the second half of the game between England and Iran.

Former Italian referee Pierluigi Colina is the current FIFA refereeing president. He explained the situation of extra time in 2022. Colina, who is remembered by Brazilians for having refereed the 2002 World Cup final, argued that many games had less than 50 minutes of ball play, and that this was not good for football.