South African side Mamelodi Sundowns have gone viral for producing the greatest piece of time wasting you will ever see.
Sundowns were 2-1 up against Bloem Celtic in the dying embers of their Premier Division clash and decided to get very creative.
Advert
Gaston Sirino walked over to take a corner and positioned the ball, before conveniently remembering he is not the corner taker.
Instead, Sibusiso Vilakazi slowly jogged over and decided to reposition the ball once again, something the referee noticed.
He booked Sirino for the antics and in any other game that would probably be the end of it. This was not any other game though.
Advert
Vilakazi flat out refused to take the corner and received a caution of his own.
Hlompho Kekana decided to show some responsibility as captain and trotted over the take the set piece.
The 37-year-old then carried out the exact same routine and got booked. That makes it three bookings in the space of one minute for one corner.
Naturally, Bloem's players were furious and protested at how long the whole saga was going on.
Advert
Fans online have reacted to the clip and they begrudgingly respect the s**thousery.
One commented: "That was spectacular, wasn't expecting it to be that level of sh**house when I clicked."
Another said: "Don't show this to Jose Mourinho or Diego Simeone."
Advert
A third commented: "And people genuinely want to stop this? It is art."
While someone put: "Imagine if people could do this on FIFA. So many lost controllers."
Sundowns would go on to win the game and there were contrasting emotions from the two benches at full-time.
One manager had seen his plan work perfectly, while another was completely undone.
Advert
Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg believes a way to combat time wasting is 60 minute games with a stop clock.
"I think there's a solution to all of this and that's 60-minute matches with a stop-clock - an idea which Pierluigi Collina, FIFA and IFAB are currently looking at," he said in his Daily Mail column.
"It works in basketball and it could work in football, too The clock is paused when the ball goes out of play, for example, or there's an injury causing a delay, or a referee is issuing a yellow card and dishing out a talking-to.
"That way, every game would last the same length and we'd get rid of this controversy."
Topics:Ā South Africa