Man United’s Varane says players’ welfare ignored over added time rules

As part of the new regulations, referees will add the exact time lost in goal celebrations, substitutions or injuries to the stoppage time. The new rules that English Football has enacted to avoid time wasting will increase player workload in an already packed schedule, Manchester United defender Raphael Varane has said as he slammed authorities for ignoring player concerns. There were eight minutes of added time in the second half of Arsenal’s victory over Manchester City in the Community Shield, while several matches in the second-tier championship’s first round of games had 10 or more minutes of added time. Football ruling body FIFA found 10 minutes and 11 seconds of added time were played on average in Qatar, an increase on the average for the previous World Cup finals in Russia, but also found effective playing time was up in Qatar by more than four minutes compared with Russia. However, the effect of the extra added time on players over a sustained period has already been highlighted by their global union FIFPRO, which reported earlier this year that the changes would amount to the equivalent of up to three extra games per season for players with the highest existing workloads.