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There are a few new rules premiering this World Cup, and one of them has been causing a lot of controversy. This is the hydration breaks. Soccer games are typically 90 or so minutes with a halftime, but now for the first time ever, soccer's ruling body, FIFA, has been implementing two hydration breaks regardless of the temperature. FIFA says it's to protect players from the heat, but a lot of fans say it is a moneymaking scheme. NPR's Jasmine Garsd reports.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: OK, let me paint you a picture. You're watching a World Cup match. Things are heating up.
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GARSD: Your team is looking unstoppable. You can just smell the goal. You're yelling very bad things at the TV screen. And then, suddenly, the ref calls for a stop. It's time to hydrate. FIFA's new mandatory three-minute hydration breaks happen around the 22nd-minute mark and the 67th minute of the game, and FIFA says it's to counter the summer heat. Dr. Gregory Waryasz, the head orthopedist for Northeastern University, says cramping due to dehydration is very common in these games, but there are other bigger concerns.
GREGORY WARYASZ: What you really want is to make sure no players are having heat stroke and heat exhaustion and different things that can be really deadly.
GARSD: Waryasz says players already take advantage of someone's injury or a foul to run to the sidelines and grab a gulp. So why not make it official and standardize it across all games, regardless of temperature? And after a recent noon match in Seattle, USA coach Mauricio Pochettino agreed.
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MAURICIO POCHETTINO: It was tough to play for the player. I think it's necessary today. It's an open stadium, 12 o'clock in summer. Was good to have the water break to help.
GARSD: But in Toronto, during the recent Ghana-Panama match, it was in the 60s and raining. And that led to many fans calling foul, especially 'cause those breaks have become really lucrative spots for TV broadcasters. Riath Al-Samarrai, chief sports writer for the Daily Mail, calls it, quote, "a disgrace."
RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Certainly, the cynic in me would look at that and say that this is purely a commercial device from an organization which has monetized almost every other aspect of football and at the cost of the actual game itself.
GARSD: Unless you're paying for Telemundo's stream, which runs commentary during hydration breaks, you're watching ads. And according to The Wall Street Journal, a platform like Fox could make over $250 million in ad revenue from all the World Cup hydration breaks. It's not just that fans suspect this is a shameless money grab.
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GARSD: In Queens, New York, in a neighborhood known as Little Colombia, the bars are pretty packed and fans are watching the game against Uzbekistan. Colombia's team has been pressuring for another goal. It's coming. And then there's the hydration break, during which I catch up with superfan Carlos Meneses.
CARLOS MENESES: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "This is illogical," he says. "Our players are trained to play at high altitudes and in the heat. This halts the excitement of the game." And this - this is the deeper fear soccer fans against hydration breaks have, that it's changing the very identity, the rhythm of the game. Any soccer fan will tell you it's 90 minutes of agony and ecstasy in which you got to think fast. And cynics say hydration breaks make the whole thing look suspiciously like it has four quarters, like the NFL or the NBA.
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GARSD: Look, it is what it is, Meneses says, heading back to the game. Whether you're for or against it, at least in this cup, hydration breaks are here to stay. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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