With the Premier League kick-off fast approaching, here’s what’s new for the 2024/25 season, as published on the EPL website.
According to the EPL authorities, there will be a difference this campaign in how match officials will be applying the rules of the game.
Subs warming up
A slight tweak is that from this season, the number of substitutes allowed to warm up at the same time on the perimeter of the pitch during a match has gone up from three to five players per team.
This is to correspond with the fact that teams are able to make five substitutions at any one time.
Multiball
As before, the Premier League will practice the multiball system in 2024/25, with 15 balls in use to speed up the game.
When the match ball goes out of play and is not quickly retrievable, players must go to the nearest cone to collect a replacement ball themselves to restart play.
Ball assistants are not permitted to return a ball to a player but should return it to a vacant cone.
Premier League ball 24/25
But from this season, an exception to this rule has been introduced in that the ball assistants positioned behind the goals at the end where the ball goes out are allowed to return a ball to the goalkeeper who will take the restart.
It remains the case that a club’s technical area staff who deliberately delay the restart of play by holding on to the ball, kicking the ball away, etc will be sent off. Any players who do the same in the technical area will receive a yellow card.
More accurate calculation of added time
From this season, when a goal is scored, match officials will only start adding time on to the end of the match when the delay between the goal and the subsequent kick-off exceeds 30 seconds. This will allow natural time for both teams to resume their restart positions after each goal.
Given that there were 3.28 goals scored per match last season on average, this change may result in a significant drop in stoppage time this season.
