Effective playing time increases
Compared to the last three seasons, Opta shows a significant increase in effective playing time. The ball is in play for more than four minutes longer in Austria.
"The flow of the game has generally accelerated. The new rules are therefore also positively received by players and coaches," concludes Markus Hameter, chairman of the ÖFB expert committee for IFAB Laws of the Game, in a positive statement to "Sky Sport Austria".
A positive trend can also be observed in other European leagues.
Fewer on-field treatments
If a player receives treatment on the field, they must leave the field and wait outside for one minute. As a result, players stay down less often and get back up on their own.
Exceptions include injuries to goalkeepers, head injuries, or treatments following a yellow or red card foul. In 2025/26, there were an average of 1.6 treatment breaks per game; this season, there are only 0.5.
"We notice a significant change with this rule: players faking injuries, we no longer have that," says Hameter.
Significantly fewer injury stoppages
The strongest decline is in the total time lost due to treatment breaks.
The total duration of all injury stoppages combined was more than seven and a half hours last season. If, however, the figures for 2026/27 are projected for the entire playing season, only two and a half hours are accumulated.
Thus, the numbers are moving in the desired direction, and the flow of the game has noticeably increased.
