Timekeeping: How long should a game of football be?

Is football set to change forever?

Do you ever guess how much stoppage time will be added on at the end of a football match? Well the amount being added could soon be on the rise.

If you watched the Qatar World Cup you might have noticed that the games were particularly long, in fact they were some of the longest in the tournament's history.

That's because Fifa told officials off the pitch to keep track of time lost during games, and to make sure refs added it on. And that could soon become a thing seen in the top leagues here.

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) - who are in charge of the game's laws - are expected to change the guidelines.

They say they want to "create fairer conditions for both teams in terms of the amount of time available in a match".

Football matches are made up of two 45-minute halves, but the amount of that time that is actually in play, is usually way short of that.

Stoppage time was introduced in 1891 so that officials could add more time on at the end to make up for unusual breaks in play.

That used to be just for injuries, but now there are substitutions, VAR checks, long celebrations and time wasting too.

But there are still two problems - only the referee knows when a match will end, and different matches have the ball in play for different amounts of time.

What is the solution?

The Qatar World Cup had some of the longest matches in the tournament's history

Some big names from the world of football, including former players and referees, have suggested that matches could officially last 60-minutes, with the clock stopping every time the ball goes out of play.

This would be similar to rugby union, where the clock stops for Television Match Official checks, injuries and substitutions, ensuring that the play continues for the full 80 minutes.

Some might think that less football would be played that way, but experts say a lot of matches have the ball in play for much less than 60 minutes.

A stop-clock is such a radical change that it is unlikely to be introduced in the near future, but the Qatar World Cup showed another alternative with much more time being added at the end of each half.