Waste of time is a hot topic in football right now.

A number of rules have been tweaked this season in an attempt to combat the situation – most notably, the newly implemented eight-second rule for goalkeepers, and a mandatory 30-second wait on the touchline for any player with a head injury or any treatment on the pitch.

More changes are expected, with the timing of throw-ins and goal kicks now under review by FIFA, and injuries to goalkeepers also controversial.

An unfortunate side effect of these aggressive new rules appears to be that players who are forced to leave the field due to blood on their skin or equipment are forced to wait on the touchline before being waved back. Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka and a crowd of more than 45,000 were left frustrated by the situation during Sunday’s Tyne and Wear derby against Newcastle.

A new 30-second waiting time was introduced at the start of the season for any player with a head injury to give the medical team more time to assess whether a player is at risk of concussion, but that was not the case with Xhaka.

Referee Peter Banks asked Xhaka off the field in stoppage time to treat an eye injury when his side led 1-0 and came under pressure from Newcastle looking for an equalizer. FA rules state, “Any player who is injured and bleeding must leave the playing field. They must not return to the playing field until the referee or fourth official confirms that the bleeding has stopped. Injured players can only return to the playing field after the game has started.”

Xhaka voluntarily ran off the pitch. After the bleeding stopped, he told the fourth official he was ready to return, the fourth official told the referee.

However, while referees treat blood injuries and injuries to other parts of the body the same, intuitively there is a crucial difference between the two: if a player goes down with anything other than a blood injury or a head injury, the referee will ask the player if they need treatment, and if they say “yes”, once the physio leaves the pitch, the rules state that the players must do the same and wait on the touchline until the referee waves them back. If a player chooses treatment, he must wait on the sideline for more than 30 seconds. This makes sense – it stops wasting time.

The difference when players have blood on them is that they don’t get to choose whether to receive medical treatment – the referee is obligated to remove them from the field for the safety of everyone else on the field.

Therefore, the player will be subject to a similar penalty to any player requesting treatment (the mandatory 30 second wait does not apply to blood injuries, but due to the circumstances of the game, most players will remain on the sideline for more than half a minute before being recalled).

Gary Neville called the situation “completely crazy” in his commentary and said “I don’t like it at all”.

So why did it take more than 30 seconds to get Xhaka back on the pitch? Referees will have a list of criteria they are considering before allowing players to return to the field of play. they must try to avoid

• Player rejoins in the same game session
• If the ball is on the same side of the court or close to where the player is waiting, the player rejoins the action directly
• Players rejoin when a team is in an advanced attacking position

Therefore, when the player is allowed to return to the field of play depends on these factors and the referee’s judgment.

In Xhaka’s case, since he was not treated on the field and his cut was not considered a possible concussion, the mandatory 30-second rule did not apply. So when he told the fourth official he was ready to return, the referee tried to get him back on the field. Despite this, depending on the circumstances of the game and referee Peter Banks’ assessment of the criteria, the Sunderland player waited more than 30 seconds before being allowed to rejoin the game.

Fortunately, this brief spell with ten men at the Stadium of Light did not cost Sunderland, despite the palpable anger in the stands and on the touchline.

As more and more rules are being put in place to combat wasted time, it’s likely there will be more unintended consequences like this in the future, impacting players who don’t want to seek an advantage in a so-called injury.

The match officials have set the microphone to sky sports premier league Tuesday 8pm