Major League Soccer is lobbying global football's rule-making body to explore the possibility of halting the clock during stoppages, a shift that would fundamentally alter how time operates in the sport.
The league has opened preliminary discussions with the International Football Association Board about trialing a stopped clock that would pause for injuries, substitutions, fouls, and set pieces. Paul Grafer, MLS's vice-president of competition, framed the push as a way to combat time-wasting and match manipulation.
"When are we going to move away from all of these stopgap procedures and see if we can address gamesmanship and match manipulation by having the referee have a stopped clock?" Grafer told the Guardian. "We're open to trials around the world, and working with Ifab."
Ali Curtis, MLS's executive vice-president of sporting development, confirmed the conversations are underway. "We've had preliminary conversations with Ifab around future areas of innovation, including concepts such as a stopped clock, increased transparency around timekeeping, and other measures designed to improve consistency and fan understanding," Curtis said.
The proposal marks a return to MLS's early years. The league actually employed a stopped clock from its 1996 inception through 1999, even using a countdown format instead of counting up. MLS also experimented with a 60-minute version before ditching the format after the 1999 season, along with the 35-yard shootout that had decided regular-season ties.
Commission Don Garber explained the reversal at the time by saying the league had listened to its core audience and moved on. College soccer in the US still uses the stopped clock model, as do mainstream American sports like basketball and football.
Ifab last seriously debated implementing a stopped clock in 2017 but shelved the idea over concerns about unpredictable match lengths affecting broadcasters and a more philosophical view that the 90-minute match format was beyond question. The organization instead introduced incremental changes to combat time-wasting, including unprecedented amounts of stoppage time ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
An Ifab source told the Guardian this week that MLS faces an uphill climb. "Ifab allows and introduces trials if there is wide interest in a topic," the source said. "This one has very little support at the moment."
Still, MLS has built credibility as a testing ground for soccer innovation. The league pioneered anti-time-wasting measures around injuries and substitutions in MLS Next Pro, its developmental league, before Ifab adopted them globally ahead of this summer's World Cup. MLS was also among the first to partner with Ifab on VAR implementation and testing, beginning in early 2017 with the lower-division USL before rolling out the technology league-wide in 2018.
If approved, a stopped clock trial would likely follow the same path. Grafer said MLS would formally submit a proposal to Ifab and conduct trials in Next Pro before considering broader implementation.
"We'd then look at the data and see if it's good for the game," Grafer said.
Author James Rodriguez: "MLS's pitch to Ifab has merit on the gamesmanship front, but the resistance from the traditionalist corners of world soccer is real, and this won't move fast."
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