The ball's only in play for 60-65 mins per match so there would be some very long matches if they had to play 90mins with the ball in play.
In rugby league they do have official timekeepers who stop the clock, but only when the ref tells them to and only for extended breaks in play. For example if the time between a try being scored and the subsequent kick off to restart the game drags on for more than one minute they stop the clock. I would like to see that system intoduced in football, it would certainly add to the drama at the end of a game if the clock ticking down was visible to everyone. But it wouldnt prevent goalkeepers from wasting a few seconds every time they receive the ball.
There has to be some uniformity about the length of a game. Competitions and titles could be won by teams who have an extra minute or so, and teams could be relegated by adding on a dubious number of minutes. We've seen it all before. Ferguson will still be fuming about the amount of time that Dean added on in the QPR game, although he was quite happy with the amount of time that The Timelord added on after Bellers got the equaliser at The Swamp.
I bet there is not one single game played in the PL on any weekend that matches another for its duration.
I think the current system of some knob holding up a board and telling us how many minutes is the most opaque system that could be devised, particularly with the line about 'minimum'! It's results massaging at it best, or worst. Wholly unsatisfactory.
I reckon 35 minutes each way timed only when the ball is in play! Everybody knows then, providing the Whistling Wanker hasn't got his hand on the stopwatch. It's a job tailor-made for us FOCs in CBL3.
A rather interesting statistic among the number of passes, shots on target, etc, that Opta could easily provide would be the length of time the ball was in play. I fancy the discrepancy between games would be staggering - A league table, perhaps, of time PL teams have had an opportunity to score. I should imagine that the homes games at The Swamp would be streets ahead. Particularly when they were chasing a goal!
Italian football on C4 a decade or so with James Whatisname showed that stat at the end of a game. It got down to 59 fuckin' minutes in one game! I bet those fat arses at Uefa and FICKFUFA put a stop to it!