Okay, time for another stupid question by VF21...
The officials can just decide to extend the game as long as they like? And this comes on the heels of the recent news that a bunch of officials had conspired to fix games? Do I have this right?
"Injury time" is added on to the end of 90 minutes (and half time) based on how much time was wasted during the 45 minutes. It varies from game to game as each game is different and it depends on whether players were injured and the game was stopped, whether players were time wasting, goals scored (which cause delays), substitutions etc. Generally speaking, it varies from about 2 - 6 minutes, but more or less isn't unheard of, though uncommon. Just depends on the game. The fourth officials (the referee looking guys on the sideline) decide the amount of time to be added (injury time). Say for example, 3 minutes of injury time was added at the end of 90 mins. But during those three minutes, there's a substitution, and a player gets injured and is rolling around for 30 seconds. Then the ref should really add another minute onto that 3. Sometimes they do, often times they don't bother. It's up to the discretion of the ref. They're not required to end the game after 3 minutes on the dot as usually happens in American sports with the timer/buzzer etc.. But I haven't really seen anything out of the ordinary so far, certainly not anything that would warrant claims of fixing (which may or may not be true, but certainly unlikely based on injury time anyway).
Hope I explained that clearly - I think I made it sound more complicated than it really is.
