Why do referees still book players for time-wasting?
Referees still seem to have this fixation about producing yellow cards when goalkeepers take a goal kick or even outfield players take a free kick and they dawdle about while doing so. But, why do referees still do that?
Added time of several minutes on the end of both halves of each match was introduced to the game to take into account players getting injured and attended to on the pitch by the 'sponge men and ladies', substitutions and... to counteract time-wasting. So it does seem to be a double-whammy when the referees not only add on 6, 8 or even 10 minutes at the end of each half to include time-wasting but then penalise the offending players by brandishing a yellow card.
Anybody would think that referees are on a 'bonus' by seeing how many times during a game they can produce a yellow card in a game for time-wasting.
Surely one action cancels out the other? In this case, added time should cancel out a caution? Back in days of yore, referees rightly or wrongly booked players for time-wasting, but in those days referees only allowed a minute or two of 'injury time' on to the end of each match.
Now, here is something quite surprising, added time (also known as stoppage or injury time) was actually first introduced to the game of football in 1891... to combat time-wasting! The introduction followed a match between Aston Villa and Stoke City, during which the Aston Villa goalkeeper wasted the final two minutes of the game in which Villa were winning by kicking the ball out of the stadium. Some goalkeeping antics don't change at Villa Park, it seems. Before that, matches used to be whistled to a halt at exactly 90 minutes. So, neither time-wasting nor added time are anything new to our game, yet you'd think that referees would have learnt about that by now.
Come on, ref, you either add the time on that's been wasted or you show a yellow card and have done with it. Please stop doing both, because all you are succeeding in doing is holding up the game even more... which is also known as time-wasting!
Trevor Mulligan