Ex-Fifa official: Liverpool may be ‘exploited’ by Premier League mistake as major change incoming
Premier League side can “exploit” the new multi-ball system by employing negative tactics against “big clubs” like Liverpool, according to Keith Hackett.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the ex-Fifa referee and former head of the PGMOL claimed when he introduced the multi-ball system first time round it was booted out by the Premier League.
The Daily Mail reported on Sunday (17 July) that it will be reintroduced for the 2022-23 campaign with clubs told to use eight ball assistants who must make eye contact with a player before giving them a ball.
As well as the ball in play, eight will be dotted around the pitch on cones while the fourth official will have the 10th ball.
“I think this was interesting because when I was the boss at the PGMOL, we ran the multi-ball system for a short period,” Hackett told Football Insider‘s Connor Whitley.
“There was an abuse of the system. Maybe in those early stages, clubs didn’t train the ball boys and on more than one occasion you had two balls on the pitch which is a dilemma.
“There were issues. There were clear levels of abuse within the system.
“At the time, Richard Scudamore, the CEO of the Premier League decided to kill it and said ‘We’re not having it, it’s abused and it’s’ not achieved what it’s set out to achieve’.
“They use it in Europe and we don’t even talk about it because it’s in operation. Having said that, I heard someone from Uefa say the average game has the ball in play for less than 50 minutes so the multi-ball doesn’t help.
“If we think the multi-ball system is going to speed things up and be the saviour, whoever has thought that in the Premier League has got it wrong.
“It’s a number of things, the treatment of injuries, the time it takes for substitutions. We’ve got referees that need to be educated to speed their process up.
“One thing that we can’t avoid is the negative tactics that some teams will employ against a big club. They will slow things down within the laws of the game – time delaying not time wasting.”
In other news, Kieran Maguire has issued a “scandalous” Liverpool claim amid the latest from France.