BENJAMIN W.C. JEROME, MICHAEL STOECKL, BEN MACKRIELL, THOMAS SEIDI, JONATHAN P. FOLLAND

One of the major talking points in professional football over the last few years has been the amount of time the ball is actually in play, commonly referred to as ball-in-play (BIP) time. In fact, significant rule changes were implemented for the Premier League 2023-24 season, whereby match officials have been instructed to add on anytime accrued due to intentional time- wasting and specific events (e.g. injuries, substitutions, celebrations) at the end of matches. These rule changes have seen an increase in BIP time during the 2023-24 season of around 3 minutes compared to the 2022-23 campaign. But how does BIP time influence the physical metrics, and more specifically, the physical intensity of match play? This report summarises an aspect of our paper published in the European Journal of Sports Sciences (Jerome et al., 2023).