Credit: Imago

James Barker

Fri 1 May 2026 9:40, UK

Ethan Ampadu believes he was “right” to respond the way he did to Chelsea’s perceived time-wasting antics in Leeds United‘s FA Cup semi-final defeat.

Leeds FA Cup semi-final loss to Chelsea was littered with talking points, but one of the biggest involved Ampadu.

With an hour on the clock, Blues goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was instructed to go down in order to receive ‘treatment’ from Chelsea’s medical staff.

However, it was immediately obvious to everyone watching that it was a deliberate ploy in order to waste a bit of time, kill Leeds’ momentum and provide an opportunity for Chelsea’s coaching staff to pass messages across to their players.

Ampadu took umbrage to that, and it certainly didn’t fool the Leeds captain, who has now broken his silence on how he perceived the incident during the Whites’ Wembley defeat.

What has Ethan Ampadu said about Chelsea’s time-wasting?

Chelsea have been criticised for their Leeds antics, with pundits and the wider football audience in general largely condemning them for deliberately slowing the game down.

It’s a tough situation to unpick though, as the ‘dark arts’ have always been a part of the game, and it’s an element of the sport that fans love when their team does it, but hate it when their team is on the receiving end.

This is sort of the stance that Leeds skipper Ampadu has taken from the game against Chelsea, where he decided to go and place himself in the middle of the Blues’ conversation whilst Sanchez was down.

Numerous members of Leeds’ staff and players also got involved, with the situation eventually ending up with some pushing and shoving, as the Whites clearly weren’t buying the whole incident.

Speaking on the Leeds United: Don’t Go To Bed Just Yet podcast via BBC Sounds, Ampadu made a tongue-in-cheek assessment of the whole situation, and doubled-down on his response to it all.

“First of all, you never want to just put away that someone might be feeling something or injured, so first of all you hope that the keeper is alright,” he said.

“Every keeper that’s happened to us has been okay and they’re not injured.

“After that I just went to go get a drink and it’s right next to their dug out. In all honesty, it’s just a bit of gamesmanship where there’s no law that can change it right now.

“I don’t know what it could be, but there’s no law now. Everyone understands the gamesmanship behind it, so I might be wrong, but I thought I was maybe right to have a little bit of a joke with it and have a bit of gamesmanship and have a drink next to them.”

What is being done to stop ‘timeouts’ such as Chelsea one?

As Ampadu states, nobody yet knows what the golden bullet is to put an end to these ‘timeouts’ being taken by teams, with Chelsea’s at Wembley far from being the first instance of it.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) are known to be looking at a fix, but haven’t been able to settle on any law changes for the 2026-27 season.

Instead, leagues will be given the opportunity to run their own timeout-busting trials next term, ahead of a time in March 2027 when IFAB will reconvene on the matter, look at what’s been done and hope to announce a solution.

Until then, we await to see what trials may be ran by the Premier League next season.