Refereeing Change Alters How Bettors Approach Premier League Season

After two seasons with longer matches than ever before and record-breaking goal tallies, the Premier League has altered how it works out stoppage time for the 2024-25 season. The betting impact is bound to be significant given the number of late goals we saw in 2023-24. 

Cutting Matches By 90 Seconds On Average

Premier League matches averaged 101 minutes and 35 seconds last season. Efforts to clamp down on time-wasting, along with the lengthy VAR breaks, have contributed to Premier League stoppage-time figures going through the roof in recent years. It’s no longer an eyebrow-raiser when the fourth official holds up the board with a number above five on it, and that occasionally happens in both halves. 

The PFA, unsurprisingly, was not happy with this. Working players for longer was blamed for plenty of injuries over the last couple of seasons. These changes initially came in following pressure from IFAB to make sure the amount of ball-in-play time was maximised but the Premier League took its added time to the extreme, far beyond other European leagues and UEFA competitions. 

For 2024-25, the Premier League are making a concerted effort to shorten the overall match time. Tony Scholes, the league’s chief football officer, identified one of the key measures.

“Last season, we added on every second from when the ball hit the back of the net until the restart. In 2024-25, we are not going to add on the first 30 seconds because 30 seconds is the natural time it would take the two teams to get back in position for the restart after a goal.”

Of course, the impact of this tweak will depend on the number of goals scored. The 3.1 per match in 2023-24 was a league record, but part of that was attributed to longer matches. Will referees generally be more lenient with adding on time? 

How Do Shorter Matches Impact Bettors?

These changes are expected to take roughly one-and-a-half minutes off the average match duration. Comments from the Premier League suggest we will still get some matches which go up towards 105 minutes and beyond, but they should be the exception rather than the norm. 

The 2022-23 season broke the record for the number of goals in a Premier League season. The record was broken again in 2023-24. There is an element of chicken and egg with this – shorter matches mean fewer goals, but more goals equal longer matches (even with the new refereeing directives).

Generally, fewer stoppage-time minutes will result in fewer goals over the course of the season. The 2023-24 campaign shattered the record for the most goals in second-half stoppage time, breaking the previous season-high by March. Matches were over four minutes longer than the other campaigns with 80+ added-time goals. 

Players are obviously more fatigued when matches get up towards 100 total minutes. More talented teams should benefit from their bench against tiring opponents. While the league is only aiming to shorten matches by 90 seconds or so, the impact could still be significant when it comes to the number of goals per match and both teams to score markets. 

Betting on second halves became particularly profitable over the last couple of seasons, with matches often having 52 or more minutes in the second period. If the average drops by a minute or two, bettors suddenly have a lot more to think about. 

There were over 2.5 total goals in 65% of Premier League matches last season. Everton were the only team to hit the under in more than half of their matches. 

Timekeeping changes aren’t going to completely revamp the Premier League, but they could do enough to alter how we approach the betting markets, particularly those who have been focused on second-half betting. Second-half comebacks might have just become that bit more difficult. The same can be said for both teams to score in both halves, multiple second-half goals, and various other betting options which became more appealing over the last two seasons. 

Odds courtesy of Betway. Correct at time of publishing and subject to change