After Madrid penalty furore, football's lawmakers rule for retakes
Atletico Madrid's Julian Alvarez scores a penalty during the penalty shootout wich is later disallowed after a VAR review for a double touch. PHOTO: REUTERS
– If Julian Alvarez slips while taking a penalty for Atletico Madrid at the Club World Cup in June, he will get the second chance he was denied in the Champions League in March, after international football's rule-making body on June 3 clarified the double-touch rule.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) announced that if players unintentionally touch the ball twice while taking a spot kick and still find the net, they should be allowed a retake.
Alvarez slipped as he netted his kick in a shoot-out to decide a Champions League derby against Real Madrid.
Video review (VAR) detected that he had touched the ball twice and the referee ruled the shot a miss under Law 14, which deals with penalty kicks. Real went on to win the shoot-out 4-2.
After the match, European governing body Uefa said that 'under the current rule, the VAR had to call the referee signalling that the goal should be disallowed'. Uefa then said it would hold talks with Fifa and the IFAB to discuss the issue.
On June 3, IFAB issued its ruling.
It was due to come into force on July 1, but Fifa at once announced the change would apply to the Club World Cup, which kicks off in the United States on June 15 with both Madrid clubs among the 32 teams.
Uefa also adopted the change, stating that 'all Uefa matches, starting with the Nations League semi-final between Germany and Portugal on 4 June 2025 will now be played under the new interpretation of Law 14'.
'The situation where the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or when the ball touches the penalty taker's non-kicking foot or leg immediately after they have taken the kick... is rare,' wrote Lukas Brud, IFAB's secretary in a circular.
'As it is not directly covered in Law 14, referees have understandably tended to penalise the kicker for having touched the ball again.'
However, he added, the law 'is primarily intended for situations where the penalty taker deliberately touches the ball a second time before it has touched another player'.
Brud pointed out that even an accidental second touch could be unfair to a goalkeeper because it changes the ball's trajectory.
Therefore, he wrote, IFAB had decided that 'if the kick is successful, it is retaken'.
If a kick during the game is unsuccessful, the result is an indirect free kick, as it would be for a deliberate second touch, unless the referee decides to play an advantage for the defending team. In a shoot-out it remains a miss. AFP
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