England fans openly booed the hydration breaks during their side’s 4-2 win over Croatia in Dallas on Wednesday night as the backlash to FIFA”s new rules continued.
FIFA’s water breaks for player safety have been widely condemned with critics claiming they effectively turn football matches into four quarters – with US TV networks benefitting massively from extra adverts.
Liverpool and Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk went public with his frustrations following his side’s 2-2 draw with Japan.
He said: “Hydration breaks are a bit interesting, because I was obviously watching almost all the games up until today, and every time going to commercial is a bit … Not really that I like it.
“I think for the neutral watchers on TV it’s also not great. If it’s really hot, obviously it would be good to put them in. But I think you have to look at it in every game, separately, in my opinion. But I think I’ve said enough already for that.”
Pundits Gary Neville and Roy Keane have also stuck the boot in, with the former suggesting Fifa need to be very careful moving forward.
Neville explained: “I think FIFA are going to have to act quite quickly now. [It’s] effectively a mini-half-time, four quarters. I am surprised it’s not been stamped on pretty quickly, and I think it is a stealth advertising break.”
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Keane was similarly scathing: “The problem is the other night the weather was lovely. It was a lovely cool evening, particularly the second half, and the game you were thinking ‘there’s a bit of momentum, you can smell something here’.
“And sometimes it comes on the back of a player being injured, so you’ve waited two or three minutes for a player to get treatment, the game kicks off and they go ‘oh no, we have a hydration break’.”
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