Watching the World Cup a question popped into my head that I can’t figure out. Why, in this day and age, with our sophisticated electronics and encrypted communications, is the referee’s watch/timer not made available to everyone in the stadium. Only the ref knows with certainty how much stoppage time there is and therefore how much time is left to play before he blows the whistle. I can’t think of any other sport where neither the competitors nor the spectators know when the game/match is going to end. Someone please flight my ignorance.
The answer is…“tradition.”
You’re correct that it’s a sloppy system, and inherently prone to bias. But until people get sufficiently outraged, it will stay.
The same system applies in Australian football. The time remaining is not displayed in the stadium, so neither the players nor spectators in the stadium know how much time remains.
But the time remaining is available to broadcasters, so if you’re watching on television you’ll know. If you’re listening to radio commentary you won’t have a constant awareness, but from time to time - especially towards the end - the commentators will say.
Which means spectators in the stadium can, if they wish, listen to the radio commentary to get time remaining checks. And, to the extent practicable, the time remaining can be communicated to players by, e.g. dugout staff holding up signs to indicate 1 minute to go, or 30 seconds to go, or whatever. This does sometimes happen, but more usually the staff will skip that and simply signal the tactics - offensive or defensive, as the circumstances require - that are appropriate, given the time remaining.
That’s exactly why it’s in place. Bias. That is, the referee must be able to add time to the game, with prejudice, at his/her discretion. This can change moment by moment as continual time additions (and sometimes even subtractions) are being made.
An unbiased clock seen by all would remove the referees ability to add time to make up for time-wasting and other stoppages, but primarily time-wasting. That is a subtle and delicate thing that must be judged.
Stoppages for injuries, subs, and goal celebration are pretty obvious. A 5th or 6th official would be able to stop and restart a clock for those sorts of things but the detailed tracking of time-wasting can only be judged by one person. Thus, only the referee keeps the time.
Only the referee is closely enough involved with the game that they are able to add time as needed. If his/her constant tweaking of the time went up on a stadium scoreboard it would cause riots.
Do the match officials add various amounts of time as they do in football/soccer? Are the commentators just saying how much time has already elapsed (which everyone in the stadiums know too). Or is the clocked sopped and started for various reasons and no one knows but the broadcasters (but no one else)?
Not really. A better system would be to give multiple officials the ability to add time, and have the clocks sync up/average the time added.
No. Only the official on the field running with the players can make an judgement determining how much stoppage time to add.
You don’t officiate by committee.
Why would the crowd seeing the ref stop and start the clock cause riots? Missed penalties by the ref don’t cause riots, just a lot of booing.
And yet all other major sports that have a time clock (U.S. football, ice hockey etc.) are able to manage the clock so that it’s obvious how much time remains in a game.
Some soccer “traditions” (like this one, and flopping to fake injuries) need to die out ASAP, with no time left on the clock. 
I don’t think they end the game right at that second. My feeling is that the ref looks for a logical place to end the game, like right after a change of possession. It seems like they have discretion to end the game slightly early or late in order to end at a good time.
That’s why, for example, you never see a soccer highlight where they’re showing the clock ticking down to zero with extreme slow-mo on a foot kicking the ball to see if that shot on goal happened before the game ended. Under the traditional system, that shot on goal always happens before the game ends, because they won’t end a game in the middle of an active attack on goal.
They could shave five minutes off the time in each half (45->40 minutes) and only have the clock running when the ball is in play. That would take care of the time wasting bullshit.
Rugby moved to a stopping clock a few years ago. Field Hockey has a siren.
Its really just FIFA being hidebound traditionalists. They think a stop watch is a new fangled technology.
Simple rules can be made. Clock stops for injuries, goals, substitutions in the last 5 minutes and for VAR checks. Referee signals clock stop and starts. Game cannot end on a foul and if play starts for a dead ball just before the buzzer, it continues until the ball is dead again.
Rugby should stop it for field goals/extra points/whatever it’s called in rugby. Watching those guys stare at the ball and then at the uprights and then at the ball and then at the uprights interminably drives me batty.
Conversion.
Thanks!
I love watching rugby, but there’s an English player who really extends that part out.
Part of it is definitely tradition. Part of it involves whether poorer countries can afford tech that links the ref’s clock to the scoreboard (if there is one at all). But what I’ve heard from a lot of fans, is that they are deathly afraid that stops in the official time of the game would be a gateway to introduce ads during play.
Plenty of sports officiate by committee, and some even do so remotely. There is nothing that prevents soccer from doing so.
I still wouldn’t want the clock to interrupt a shot on goal. How about an official clock everyone can see, but once it hits zero, the game doesn’t stop until whichever team controls the ball loses possession.
Fivethirtyeight on time stoppage:
Brian
I think having the clock become a factor would actually intensify the excitement of the game. Otherwise this is like saying that the 24-second shot clock in basketball shouldn’t reach zero before a player has had time to make his shot.
I don’t see why the clock couldn’t be in public view, run by a designated official. You certainly don’t need to be on the field to tell when a team is wasting time. There could be designated times for common stoppages; say, fifteen seconds from the time of the whistle to take a throw-in, thirty to take a corner, whatever. If it takes longer, the clock stops running.