News from European football as the association scraps the Away goal advantage rule from their every club competition from next season.
Union of European Football Association aka UEFA has scraped the rule of away goal advantage rule from next season. Hence, no clubs will have to worry about the value of away goals.
UEFA claims that they unanimously decided to scratch out the rule from their competitions. But report claims that Arsene Wenger had a major dissatisfaction with the away goal advantage rule.
After he joined the FIFA as Director of Development, the issue was certainly taken under serious scrutiny.
The actual reason for scrapping the AWAY Goal advantage rule
UEFA has announced that the away goal rule had a massive impact in the quality of the football matches played in their competitions.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin says that their analysis revealed shocking degradation in quality of the games in their competitions. Since the rule started in 1965, the home teams became more and more cautious in their approach.
The data revealed that the percentage of home wins compared to away team wins have decreased significantly. In numbers, the home win percentage fell from 61% to 47%, whereas away wins increased from 19% to 30%.
In terms of goal numbers, the ratio of goals per match decreased from 2.02 to 1.58 for home teams. And the same number went up for away teams from 0.95 to 1.15.
UEFA switches to conventional methods
UEFA has announced to switch back to existing conventional methods to decide the winner from drawn games.
If two teams end up in same number of goals after drawing the tie, the teams will continue to play the Extra time and then penalty shoot outs.
The away goal rule provided massive advantages to certain teams. Especially when away teams scored ONE goal in 2nd leg during crucial times, the home team had to score two more goals to confirm their qualification.
Several managers like former Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger or Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone complained about the method. Several teams took clear advantage of this rule by playing ultra-defensive football in their home tie.
UEFA Competitions to scrap the away goal advantage rule
UEFA has announced that their Champions League, Europa League, Youth League and Super Cup will see the changes. The newly introduced UEFA Conference League will also begin with this rule.
UEFA Women Champions League and their sub-ordinate competitions will see this rule being introduced.
Although several international competitions still have the away goal advantage rule. But UEFA will not interfere or object their former rule being used in other competitions in Asia and America.
