Ex-Arsenal chairman reveals radical rule changes needed within professional football

Ex-Arsenal chairman David Dein reveals the rule changes needed within professional football, making for an interesting listen.

Sky Sports have posted a video on their socials of an interview with Dein, claiming there are three main areas of concern for football.

Particular areas of football that ‘worry’ him include the football calendar, multi-club ownership, and financial fair play. But he had a lot more to say in a previous interview with talkSPORT in October (you can read that further down in the article)…

“If I had my way, I would scrap it altogether and start fresh. It needs a re-think.”

Former Arsenal Chairman David Dein admits which football rules he would change within the professional game 👀✍ pic.twitter.com/DC6XkLuOeB

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) November 21, 2024

He said: “The politics surrounding everything at the moment, particularly, well, there’s there’s 3 areas which are worry. Number 1 is the football calendar, and you can see what’s going on there at the moment. The next is multi club ownership, where you’ve got over 200 clubs in Europe with multi club ownership. And the 3rd is financial fair play, which is very topical. And that is a bother because it’s caused a lot of friction, in fact, I would say havoc, in the league itself.

“So you’ve got litigation between the league and the clubs. You’ve got litigation between the clubs and the clubs. It’s not healthy. It’s, you know, you need, a happy environment between all the clubs and the management. And I’m afraid at the moment with the financial fair play as it is, it’s a huge problem.

“If I had my way, I’d scrap it all together and, start afresh. It needs a rethink. I mean, people talk about the calendar. You see, it’s the most successful teams that probably suffer the most because their players are involved in all the top games. But meanwhile, if you have a look last season, you had Sheffield United, Bournemouth, Brighton, right, playing only 45 or 44 games or something.

“They probably want more games. But you compare that to Man City or Liverpool or Arsenal, it’s another story. It’s a land grab because anybody sees any dates in the calendar immediately. UEFA wanna extend the Champions League. So all of a sudden, there’s another 2 games put in the calendar in the Champions League.

“I think we’ve missed a trick, in fact. It should have happened, in my opinion, and I’ve always I’ve always stuck with this belief. When we formed the Premier League in 1992, the league it was mandated the league should be 18 clubs. It should have been an 18 club league. We had 22 at the time.

“It went down after a couple of years from 22 to 20. It should have gone down to 18. And then a few clubs said, no, we we don’t wanna lose 2 home gates. But when you compare losing the 2 home gates today with all the television money being split between 18 clubs instead of 20, that probably makes a difference of 12 to 15,000,000 per club, And you’re saving 4 fixtures with a stroke of a pen. And in addition to that, getting a vital mid season break involved, which is critical, I think, which has never been properly done.”

He claimed in October that he had received the backing of PGMOL head Howard Webb for his controversial idea to change matches from 45-minute halves to 30-minute periods, and to also introduce a timekeeper who would stop play to avoid ‘wasted time’.

Discussing his idea on talkSPORT’s Sunday Edition, Dein explained the concept came from Sir Alex Ferguson’s behaviour on the touchlines.

“This is nothing new. This dates back, I think, to Fergie time, when Fergie would always be haranguing the fourth official and tapping his watch, wanting to know how much time was left,” he said.

“I’ve asked all the referees in the Premier League, several years ago, when the fourth official puts up two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, are you accurate to the last 10 seconds? The answer is no. No chance.

“Well, in this day and age, don’t forget America put a man on the moon in 1969. I think we should be able to know how long a game of football lasts.

“So my campaign is very simple. The average length of time a ball is in play in the Premier League and most Western European games is around about 55 to 57 minutes.

“I would like to see a real time, two halves of 30 minutes, where the ball is actually in play for 30 minutes each. Let the fans know how long they’ve got to go.

“Why should a fan at home have a better experience than the fan in the stadium? Let’s have a clock where we can all see how much time is being lost.

“I put it forward to IFAB (International Football Association Board) to have a look at it. All I know, what I want is always a trial. In fact, I’m talking to the Dutch league. They’re always the first. They’re very progressive.

“It won’t be a 60-minute game. It will be a 100-minute game. They’ll be in the stadium for 100 minutes.

“They’ll get value for money. They will get an extra 10 minutes of football.”

When questioned on how this would be policed, Dein claimed that it shouldn’t be the referee. “Let them worry about the game itself. It’s got to be the fourth official or a timekeeper,” he added.

“There’s enough money being spent in the game. It’s rather like boxing or basketball – a professional timekeeper.

“Howard Webb in particular, I’m glad to say, he’s supporting it. The next thing is for IFAB to allow it to have a trial somewhere so that we can see it.”