• Update: On February 28, IFAB voted to approve measures tackling time-wasting that were originally introduced by MLS Next Pro in 2022 and MLS in 2024.
In 2022, MLS Next Pro took action against the time-wasting gamesmanship that has plagued soccer for decades. On Saturday, the sport’s rule-making body, IFAB, will vote on making the timed substitution and off-field treatment rules part of the rulebook.
Ali Curtis, who spearheaded the experimentation of the rules in MLS Next Pro when the league launched in 2022, said, “The impact was overnight.”
In 2024, MLS adopted the timed substitution rule, which forces a team to play a man down for 60 seconds if the subbed player takes longer than 10 seconds to leave the field. The off-field treatment rule stipulates if a player remains on the ground for more than 15 seconds the player must leave the field of play for one minute. (There are exceptions to both rules.)
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