After Madrid penalty furore, football's lawmakers rule for retakes
"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, the secretary of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in a circular.
It did occur in the Champions League round-of-16 second matchup between Atletico and Real Madrid in March.
The tie finished 2-2 on aggregate and went to a shoot-out.
On his attempt, Alvarez slipped but still found the net. Video review detected that he touched the ball twice as he shot. The referee ruled the shot a miss under Law 14, which deals with the penalty kick, and Real went on to win 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 said it would hold talks with FIFA and IFAB.
Brud said the situation had not been addressed by the existing rule.
"As it is not directly covered in Law 14, referees have understandably tended to penalise the kicker for having touched the ball again," wrote Brud.
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".
"This is very different from the penalty taker accidentally kicking the ball with both feet simultaneously or touching the ball with their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after they have taken the kick, which usually occurs because they have slipped."
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 shootout it remains a miss.
© 2025 AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
34 minutes ago
- France 24
Germany's Merz heads for delicate talks with Trump
A month into his job, the conservative Merz, 69, is a staunch transatlanticist at pains to maintain good ties with what he considers post-war Germany's "indispensable" ally, despite Trump's unyielding "America First" stance. Merz will hope that his pledges to sharply increase Germany's NATO defence spending will please Trump, and that he can find common ground on confronting Russia after the mercurial US president voiced growing frustration with President Vladimir Putin. On Trump's threat to hammer the European Union with sharply higher tariffs, Merz, leader of the bloc's biggest economy, has argued that it must be self-confident in its negotiations with Washington, saying that "we're not supplicants". Despite the tensions, Merz said he was "looking forward" to his first face-to-face meeting with Trump. "Our alliance with America was, is, and remains of paramount importance for the security, freedom, and prosperity of Europe," he posted on X late Wednesday. His office has also voiced confidence that Merz will be spared the kind of public dressing down Trump delivered in the Oval Office to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa. Merz is looking ahead to his first in-person meeting with Trump "with great calmness and joy", his spokesman Stefan Kornelius said, pointing to their "very good relationship" so far. "Germany is the third-largest economy in the world, and we have a lot to offer as an economic partner of the USA," Kornelius said. "At the same time, a very constructive and positive relationship with America is very important to us, for our own economy and for the security of Germany and Europe." The two leaders -- both with business backgrounds and keen golf players -- are on first-name terms after several phone calls, Kornelius said, and Merz now has Trump's cellphone number on speed dial. Defence and trade Merz has been given the honour of staying at Blair House, the presidential guest residence on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House. Merz has even felt comfortable enough to have a little fun at Trump's expense, recently telling a TV interviewer that his every second or third word was "great". Whatever the personal chemistry, the policy issues are potentially explosive. Trump launched his roller-coaster series of trade policy shifts in April, with the threat of 50-percent US tariffs on European goods looming. Merz, who has sat on many corporate boards, is "very experienced in business, too -- the world from which Donald Trump comes," his chancellery chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, told the Funke media group. On the Ukraine war, where Germany strongly backs Kyiv, Merz will hope to convince Trump to heighten pressure on Putin through new sanctions to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire. Trump, 78, has recently expressed frustration with Putin, calling him "crazy", but without announcing concrete new measures. Merz's visit comes ahead of a G7 summit in Canada on June 15-17 and a NATO meeting in The Hague at the end of the month. Merz has said Germany is willing to follow a plan to raise defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP over coming years, with another 1.5 percent dedicated to security-related infrastructure. 'Calm and reasonable' Another potential flashpoint issue looms -- the vocal support Trump and some in his administration have given to the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came second in February elections. US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Trump adviser Elon Musk have all weighed in in support of the AfD, which in Germany is shunned by all other political parties. When Germany's domestic intelligence service recently designated the AfD a "right-wing extremist" group, Rubio denounced the step as "tyranny in disguise". Merz slammed what he labelled "absurd observations" from Washington and said he "would like to encourage the American government... to largely stay out of" German domestic politics. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has also openly criticised Trump, saying this week that he frequently made statements "that seem directed against the fundamental foundations of our coexistence".
LeMonde
an hour ago
- LeMonde
US and Europe insist tariff negotiations are making progress
The European Commission is holding its ground, hoping that negotiations with Washington will eventually bear fruit. For now, the Commission, which is responsible for trade policy, continued to refrain from taking retaliatory measures against the United States, even though, since Wednesday, June 4, US tariffs on steel and aluminum have doubled from 25% to 50%. These new tariffs come on top of other duties imposed by Donald Trump since his return to the White House – 25% on automobiles and 10% on a wide range of products – and have further deepened the imbalance between the two sides of the Atlantic. The European Union (EU), for its part, has still not imposed any additional tariffs on imports from its main trading partner. On Wednesday, after meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Paris, European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said he was "optimistic" about the outcome of ongoing discussions between Brussels and Washington, thereby justifying the Commission's decision to take no immediate action. The EU has stuck to this strategy for nearly two months, maintaining its course even as Trump shifts the rules. "We want to give negotiations a chance," said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on April 10. That day, under pressure from the markets, Trump announced a 90-day mini-truce in the global trade war he is waging, postponing the new tariff hikes he unveiled on April 2 to July 9. In response, the Commission suspended the implementation of the first set of countermeasures, designed to retaliate against the 25% tariffs (in place since March 12) on steel and aluminum, which the members adopted the day before.
Local France
3 hours ago
- Local France
French culture minister accepted money from energy group, report finds
Dati, an ally of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, denied any wrongdoing over the fresh allegations by renowned French investigative television show "Complement d'Enquete" and the Nouvel Observateur magazine. She was accused by both outlets of accepting €299,000 from GDF Suez in two payments that transited a now defunct law firm, STC Partners, which coincided with her taking pro-gas positions in public and in parliament. The two payments were marked as "Dati fees GDF Suez", the outlets reported. "Ms Dati has already explained herself and has never been a lawyer for GDF Suez," her personal lawyers, Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardo told AFP. Dati, a former magistrate-turned-lawyer, held a seat in the European parliament from 2009-2019 on behalf of France's main rightwing party and has been dogged for years by allegations of influence-peddling. READ MORE: France's controversial culture minister to run for Paris mayor Accusations that she was lobbying on behalf of GDF Suez first emerged in French media reports in 2013 and the 59-year-old former justice minister was questioned by the European parliament's ethics committee. In 2021, Dati was charged with "passive corruption" over her dealings with disgraced former Renault chief Carlos Ghosn, also while she was a member of the European parliament. Advertisement She is accused of accepting €900,000 in lawyer's fees from 2010-2012 from a Netherlands-based subsidiary of Renault-Nissan. Dati, a daughter of working-class North African immigrants, also denies wrongdoing in that case. She was brought back into government by President Emmanuel Macron in January 2024 in a reshuffle that was seen as tilting the formerly centrist cabinet further to the right.
