Qatar 2022: Why was so much time added to Wales' World Cup draw with the USA?

Wales' World Cup draw with the USA in Qatar lasted well over 100 minutes after 16 minutes of extra time was added to the duration of the match.

England's match against Iran was even longer with an incredible 27 minutes of injury time added on and eight minutes were added at the end of the second half of the Senegal v Netherlands game.

Even Wales captain Gareth Bale was shocked when nine minutes were added to the end of Wales' second half alone.

"Little bit tired towards the end," he admitted.

"I can't believe there were 9 minutes added on, I don't know where that came from!"

So why are matches at this World Cup lasting so long?

FIFA has said it is making a concerted effort to clamp down on wasted time at these finals, as it did at Russia in 2018.

It is down to FIFA's pre-tournament instruction to officials to maximise playing time and cut out time-wasting.

Pierluigi Collina, the Italian who chairs FIFA's referees committee, said last Friday: "We recommended our referees to be very accurate in calculating the time to be added at the end of each half to compensate the time lost.

"What we want to avoid is matches lasting 42, 43, 44, 45 minutes of active play. This is unacceptable. Whenever there will be an incident like an injury treatment, substitution slot, a penalty kick, a red card, a celebration of a goal.

"A celebration may last one, one and a half minutes, so imagine in a half there are two or three goals scored, so it's easy to lose three, four, five minutes just for goal celebrations. This time has to be considered and compensated at the end.

"And of course, the time lost to VAR intervention by the way."