Uefa Abolishes Away-Goals Rule in Club Competitions – LitKenya

European football’s governing body, Uefa, has announced that the away-goals rule will be scrapped from all club competitions from next season.

In a statement issued on Thursday, 24th June, Uefa said the change follows the recommendation of the Uefa Club Competitions Committee and the Uefa Women’s Football Committee, the Uefa Executive Committee that approved a proposal to remove the so-called away goals rule from all Uefa club competitions for men, women, and youth in the 2021/22 competitions.

The rule, which had been in place since 1965, was used to determine a winner when teams were level on aggregate after a two-legged match. The team that had scored more goals as the away side was awarded the victory.

According to Uefa, extra time, penalties will now be the only way to decide the tie if scores are level.

“With the decision to remove this rule, ties in which the two teams score the same number of goals over the two legs will not decided on the number of goals scored away, but two 15-minute periods of extra time are played at the end of the second leg and in case the teams score the same number of goals or no goals during this extra time, kicks from the penalty mark would determine the team which qualifies to the next stage of the competition,” read part of the Uefa statement.

Commenting on the abolition of the away-goals rule, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said: “The impact of the rule now runs counter to its original purpose as, in fact, it now dissuades home teams – especially in first legs – from attacking, because they fear conceding a goal that would give their opponents a crucial advantage. There is also criticism of the unfairness, especially in extra time, of obliging the home team to score twice when the away team has scored.”

“It is fair to say that home advantage is nowadays no longer as significant as it once was. Taking into consideration the consistency across Europe in terms of styles of play, and many different factors which have led to a decline in home advantage, the Uefa Executive Committee has taken the correct decision in adopting the view that it is no longer appropriate for an away goal to carry more weight than one scored at home.”

Since away-goals would no longer be given additional weight to decide a tie, they would also be removed from the criteria used to determine the rankings when two or more teams are equal on points in the group stage i.e. the criteria applied to matches played by the teams in question.

They would not be removed from the additional criteria applied to all group matches if the teams remain equal (higher number of away goals scored in all group matches), in order to retain a maximum number of sporting criteria.

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