Drastic rule change proposed by ex-Arsenal chief to cut games to 60 mins will mean MORE football is played, stats show

FORMER Arsenal chairman David Dein’s call for games to be reduced to just 60 minutes will mean MORE football is played.

The former Gunners chief, who was at the club from 1983-2007, has backed the idea of adding a stop-clock to the sport and cutting down from the traditional 90 minutes.

The average time the ball is in play in the Premier League is around 55 minutes.

Under Dein’s proposition the clock would stop every time the ball went dead, meaning 60 minutes of football per game.

And new stats that have been revealed have actually unearthed that fans and viewers would actually get to see more actual action under the radical proposal.

According to Opta, the average match time has been 98 minutes and 7 seconds so far this season in the Premier League.

However, the ball has only been in play for an average of 54m 49s – which 55.9 per cent of the game.

And it is not only the Premier League that backs up this new proposition.

Germany’s Bundesliga games are, on average, 96m 12s, but the ball is in play for only 53m 16s, which is 55.4 per cent.

Italy’s Serie A has a 55.3 per cent average of the ball being in play, while Spain’s LaLiga is 54.4 per cent.

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Regarding the 60 minute game rule, Dein said: “I’ve fought all my life in football for accuracy and integrity, the one thing that is lacking at the present moment when we are talking about accuracy is time keeping. 

“Whereas we brought it into other parts of the game, you may remember we started years ago with the ten yard spray and everyone was worrying whether that would work and it did cut out an element of cheating in the game. 

“We then went to goal line technology and everyone thought it would only be used once or twice.

“You saw it working the other day in Brentford vs Liverpool when Wissa scored a goal – it was goal line technology that captured that. 

“VAR now giving more accuracy in the game. The one area that is still lacking is the attention to time keeping.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk