It’s a tale as old as time in football: a goalkeeper, as part of a team defending a slender lead, holds onto the ball for as long as they feasibly can in an act of egregious time wasting. But that could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a rule change on the part of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), who have the responsibility to amend the laws of the beautiful game.
During the 2024/25 season, IFAB have been trialling a new eight second rule, which dictates that goalkeepers must release the ball within that timeframe – if they don’t, a corner is awarded to the opposition team.
The trial was considered a success, so the rule was launched formally in time for the FIFA Club World Cup. And congratulations go to Al-Hilal’s goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, who was the first ‘victim’ of the rule change in his side’s Club World Cup contest with Real Madrid.
What Is the Eight Second Rule?
It was back in 2023 that IFAB officials got their heads together in a mission to stop time wasting in football. Goalkeepers are often a source of such misdemeanour, so the decision was taken to try and prevent them from taking time out of the clock by rolling around on the floor with the ball.
The English Premier League agreed to be the guinea pig, volunteering its Premier League 2 – effectively a cross between reserve and youth team football – as a competition at which new rules could be tested.
IFAB decided that eight seconds was the amount of time for goalkeepers to have control of the ball before being forced to release it. The referee begins their count as soon as the keeper is determined to have full control of the ball… when just five seconds are left, the official will raise their hand to indicate as much.
If the goalkeeper still refuses to release the ball once the time has reached zero, a corner kick is awarded to the opposing team on the side of the pitch relevant to where the infringement took place. As a general rule, the goalkeeper will be warned by the referee after their first offence; following the second, they will likely be shown the yellow card. The trial in Premier League 2, as well as other competitions around the world, was deemed a success by IFAB, who unanimously voted to update Law 12.2 (Indirect free kick) accordingly.
The newly revised law was rolled out on July 1, 2025, affecting most professional leagues thereafter. However, the decision was taken to unveil the new rule at FIFA’s Club World Cup… and it wasn’t long before the first name was taken.
Bono Singing the Blues
Yassine Bounou… remember the name. You may recall the Moroccan shot-stopper anyway – he produced some miraculous performances during his country’s run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2022.
He’s nicknamed Bono – presumably for the phonetics of his surname, rather than any warbling talent, but he was clearly singing from a different hymn sheet to referee Facundo Tello during the 1-1 draw between his side, Saudi club Al-Hilal, and Real Madrid at the competition.
Having collected the ball, Bounou took an eternity to look around and make a decision on whether to kick long or not. In the end, the eight seconds elapsed, so Tello was handed no choice but to award Real Madrid a corner.
Real Madrid were awarded a corner kick after the referee deemed Al Hilal’s goalkeeper Yassine Bounou held the ball longer than eight seconds without releasing it.
A new ruling by the International Football Association Board. pic.twitter.com/q4Kp0pp2Z5
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 18, 2025
Things could have gone from bad to worse for the Moroccan, with Aurelien Tchouameni winning the header from the resulting corner – but powering it over the bar. Bono later saved a penalty in the stalemate, which will forever be known as the first game in which IFAB’s newest rule was used for the maiden time.
Will the Eight Second Rule Change Football?
There could be an interesting paradigm shift now in games in which the defending team is happy for the scoreline to remain the same – especially late on in proceedings. Will they deliberately waste time, taking eight seconds off the clock, knowing that their side will then have to defend a corner thereafter?
In a sense, little has changed with IFAB’s new law – goalkeepers have always supposed to have been punished for time wasting, with the previous rule seeing an indirect free kick given if they hold onto the ball for longer than six seconds.
However, that rule was rarely used by referees, and so keepers have enjoyed plenty of leeway in this regard for too long. What was interesting about the trial of the new eight second rule is that it produced immediate results – the FIFA secretary general, Mattias Grafstrom, commenting: “We had the test and the test was very successful. The referees didn’t have to signal for a corner [often].”
So will the eight second rule change football? It’s clear that goalkeepers are certainly minding their work a little more, and while they won’t stop time wasting any time soon when the circumstances demand it, it may be that they only take six or seven seconds to release the ball.
But here’s another question: is the concession of a corner enough of a deterrent to goalkeepers? The stats suggest that around 14% of all goals scored in the Premier League come from the first or second phase of a corner kick, but also – on average – a team will score from one in 30 corner kicks.
The long-held assumption is that corners are a dangerous phase of play in football, but the stats don’t always confirm as much. There are anomalies, of course, such as Arsenal’s goalscoring spree from corners during the 2024/25 season, but there is a sense that by giving away a corner, time wasting goalkeepers aren’t actually giving much away at all.
