Why is there so much stoppage time being added on at the FIFA World Cup

For Monday’s Group B opener between England and Iran, there were over 27 minutes of added time played, 14 in the first half following the head injury sustained by Iranian goalkeeper Ali Beiranvand and then a further nine-plus minutes granted in the second half.

Elsewhere, Wales and United States had to play a minimum of nine minutes at the end of a game that was on a knife-edge, with eight added at the end of the second half of the Senegal v Netherlands match.

Then on Tuesday morning, following a half in which Argentina had a penalty awarded by VAR and three goals chalked off for offside, in which one had to be referred to VAR, five minutes of stoppage time was added.

Here is the explanation:

FIFA is making a concerted effort to clamp down on wasted time at these finals, as it did at Russia in 2018.

Pierluigi Collina, the Italian who chairs FIFA’s referees committee, said last Friday: “We recommended our referees to be very accurate in calculating the time to be added at the end of each half to compensate the time lost.

“What we want to avoid is matches lasting 42, 43, 44, 45 minutes of active play. This is unacceptable. Whenever there will be an incident like an injury treatment, substitution slot, a penalty kick, a red card, a celebration of a goal…

“A celebration may last one, one and a half minutes, so imagine in a half there are two or three goals scored, so it’s easy to lose three, four, five minutes just for goal celebrations. This time has to be considered and compensated at the end.

“And of course, the time lost to VAR intervention by the way.”