Nieuwe WK-spelregels tegen tijdrekken en onsportief gedrag

What does “tijdrekken” mean in Dutch football?

Tijdrekken snaps tijd (time) and rekken (to stretch, to drag out) into one verb — and that literal image of pulling time like elastic is exactly the frustration it names. Dutch does this constantly: two plain words lock together to describe a precise idea. In football, tijdrekken is the tactical stalling that FIFA’s newest ruleset was built specifically to punish.

The clip walks through every new rule FIFA introduced for the 2026 World Cup to curb tijdrekken. A substituted player now has ten seconds to leave the field; miss the window and the substitute waits a full minute on the sideline. Goalkeepers get five seconds for a goal kick — if the linesman counts down from five and the ball is still not in play, the kick becomes a corner for the opponents. The same five-second rule applies to throw-ins. Any player who receives treatment on the pitch must spend one minute off it, ending the classic fake-injury stall. One presenter admits he will have to change his own habits: “Nou ben ik zelf wel iemand die vaak zijn tijd neemt met de ingooi” — he is personally guilty of tijdrekken. Beyond football, rekken appears wherever Dutch speakers describe stretching something thin: de vergadering rekken (to drag out a meeting), een gesprek rekken (to string a conversation along). Spotting the root makes a whole cluster of expressions instantly readable.