Hate extra time and penalties? Here’s how one man …
Jul 13, 2026, 03:41 AM ETTim Farrell is an unlikely football revolutionary. At 56 years old, he’s been a passionate fan all his life. Aside from that, the odds of him making any significant change on the sport are stacked against him.For starters, he was born and raised in Australia, almost as far away as anyone could be from FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. Farrell is a supporter of Newcastle — not Premier League team Newcastle United, but A-League club Newcastle Jets, based in Farrell’s hometown about two hours’ drive from Sydney. He has never played professional sport, nor worked in the soccer industry. Instead, he has spent his career working in video and multimedia production.Editor’s Picks2 RelatedYet, for the past two decades, he has been on a solo quest to change how soccer breaks ties in knockout matches. More specifically, he wants to replace extra time and penalty shootouts altogether.Soccer’s format for deciding cup games that end in a tie is a flawed system, Farrell says, citing a number of reasons: A) Extra time is boring and adds a strain onto players, B) penalties are too different to the sport itself and C) penalties are defined by individual failure, putting too much pressure on one single player, and whoever eventually misses has to suffer a great personal burden. At a World Cup, that burden can be overwhelming.Farrell, though, has a plan, one he has spent decades working on, and which he once sat for a meeting at FIFA’s head office to present.But surely penalties won’t ever be replaced due to someone just suggesting an alternative to FIFA. Except, of course, that was how the penalty shootout was introduced in the first place.How penalty shootouts entered footballThe 1968 Olympic quarterfinal match between Israel and Bulgaria in León, Mexico, must have a claim to being the most consequential match that most fans have never heard of.It’s only when you consciously think about it that you realize penalty shootouts are really a modern phenomenon. Penalties themselves — the free shot from a spot 12 yards out for a foul or handball in the 18-yard box during a match – date back to 1891, but a penalty shootout is much more recent.Until 1970, every tie in knockout football was settled one of three ways: Play another match, draw lots or toss a coin. There were eight World Cups without shootouts, and countless domestic cup games around the world. The fallout from the 1968 Olympic quarterfinal would, eventually, put an end to that.Israel and Bulgaria tied 1-1 and, at the end of the match, the players were roundly confused as to what would happen next. They soon found out: A large sombrero with two pieces of paper was brought onto the pitch, and Israel’s captain, Mordechai Spiegler, drew a piece that read, “OUT!” Just like that, Israel’s Olympic football dream was over. Bulgaria advanced instead, going on to win a silver medal.All of ESPN. All in one place.Watch your favorite events in the newly enhanced ESPN App. Learn more about what plan is right for you. Sign Up Now
That ending, understandably, did not sit well with Joseph Dagan, an Israeli soccer journalist, who teamed up with an Israeli football federation executive called Michael Almog. Together, the pair proposed the idea of a penalty shootout in a written memo to FIFA. It was later discussed and approved by football’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), in 1970. (According to the FIFA Museum, penalty shootouts had occurred in the Soviet Union to decide ties as early as the 1950s, although Dagan and Almog are credited with being the inventors of the modern-day shootout.)That same year, Manchester United and Hull City took part in the world’s first official penalty shootout, ending in United winning 4-3. Old Trafford legend George Best was the first player in history to miss in an official shootout.Decades later, as he sat in his home on the other side of the world, Farrell decided that memo was a fork in the road at which soccer had taken a wrong turn. The first time he thought to do anything about it was in May 2008 when he woke early to watch the Champions League final in Moscow between United and Chelsea.”I can remember how cold it was,” Farrell tells ESPN. “It was a freezing morning in Melbourne. When you grow up watching World Cups down here, they’re normally in the middle of winter and in the middle of the night because of the time zone. So a lot of times you’re just drinking tea under the doona (Australian slang for duvet).”The game ended in a 1-1 draw after extra time — Cristiano Ronaldo’s 26th-minute header for United was cancelled out by Frank Lampard on the stroke of halftime. Eventually, penalties were required.Among the first nine penalties to be taken, Ronaldo, somewhat surprisingly, was the only player to have missed. So, as John Terry stepped up to take Chelsea’s fifth penalty, he had a chance to clinch the club’s first Champions League title. Only, amid the pouring rain, he slipped and sent his shot wide. His face was a picture of dejection, and he sat alone with his head between his legs, tears filling his eyes. Four spot kicks later, Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka missed, too, and United were crowned European champions.That lit a fire in Farrell, though. He had long disliked penalty shootouts, and now he’d had enough. It was time to do something about it.”I was just a neutral fan,” Farrell says. “I wasn’t a John Terry fan. I mean, it’s heartbreaking that image (of Terry crying on the floor). As a longtime football fan, seeing matches resolve like this too often — a negative — in a tiebreaker that’s just built on failure.”I think we can do something better.”Germany lost a penalty shootout at a World Cup for the first time ever at the 2026 tournament against Paraguay. Alexander Hassenstein/Getty ImagesA new, radical solutionTo Farrell, shootouts are designed to amplify failure. Penalties are easy to score, which means that whoever misses is the person responsible. But what if soccer flipped it on its head? Lower the scoring rate, he thought, and suddenly whoever manages to score becomes responsible for the result.Another issue that Farrell had was that penalties do not reflect the sport itself. Penalties, to him, were alien and lacked any tactics. He was inspired by MLS’s innovation, deployed between 1996 and 2000, of a shootout where an attacker began at the halfway line and had to beat the goalkeeper one-on-one. It would be even better, Farrell thought, to add a defender into the mix and make an attacker have to beat them and score past the goalkeeper.
This is how he came to create Attacker, Defender, Goalkeeper (or “ADG,” for short).In a nutshell, it’s exactly as it seems: One attacker, 32 yards from goal, with a defender at least 10 yards away and a goalkeeper to beat, all within a 15-second time limit. If an attacker is fouled, then a penalty kick is awarded. Otherwise, they either score a goal or any other eventuality ends without a score.Teams would take turns, switching each time between attack and defense. The first five attackers for each team would be selected at the final whistle. The defenders, who can only defend once, would be selected as the attacker walks to their mark. That adds a tactical element, Farrell thought. Does a team pair their best defender against the opposing team’s best dribbler? Or is there a better matchup on offer?Farrell has a thorough explanation as to why he thinks this concept would work. Firstly, it would replace extra time. For years, he had proposed that it would just replace penalties, but extra time has gained a reputation for producing dull, cagey football without many spectacular results. “An easy thing to do is just get rid of extra time,” Farrell says.(Image courtesy of Tim Farrell)However, with ADG, he reasons it would be a good way to minimize player workload, and he has even considered TV broadcasters — he says it would feature 10 minutes of rest, followed by ADG, which usually lasts nine minutes, meaning broadcasters could know for sure when they would end their programming.He points to fair play, too. If a team has a red card, then the other team would eventually get the chance to go one-on-one with the opposition goalkeeper, should the shootout last that long into sudden death.Then there is the knock-on effect of minimizing individual failure: Without the consuming pressure of missing, could players be subject to less abuse (three Black England stars Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho received racial abuse on social media after missing penalties in the Euro 2020 final shootout).The scoring rate in modern penalty shootouts is around 70%. In Farrell’s system, it would be around 30%.”Goals would be earned. Players won’t be expected to score,” Farrell says. “There won’t be that pressure, that psychological pressure on them to score. If you don’t score, well, that’s just part of the game. If you do score, fantastic.”Players like (Italy icon Roberto) Baggio said when he missed that penalty kick in the World Cup final in 1994, it affected him for years. Other players tell similar stories, and that’s just the players who’ve gone on the record. There’ll be so many players who will still, years later, I’m sure, wake up in cold sweats and nightmares, and I don’t think it’s right.”Could it actually work?For all of Farrell’s hard work, it is still just a theory. Yet, even in the face of rejection, it hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly making his case. “I just keep knocking on FIFA’s door and on IFAB’s door until one day they talk about it, and hopefully they test it,” Farrell says. “I don’t give up. I’m pretty persistent.”Of course, there was the time, in 2010, when he travelled to Zurich to meet with FIFA themselves.”I was living in India at the time,” he says. “I thought, if they’re interested, I’ll go over there. I just paid my own way, went over, and I said, ‘I’m going to be in Switzerland. Wanna meet?'” He had already sent them his concept and asked to meet.”It was a brush-off (from FIFA)”, Farrell says, “but to be fair, the concept was the same, but even though I’d worked on it for a long time, it still wasn’t that well thought-out.”Tim Farrell has been lobbying FIFA and IFAB with an alternative to extra time and penalty shootouts for years without success, but he’s determined to make his ‘ADG’ proposal a reality. Photo courtesy of Tim FarrellThe concept was largely similar to what it remains to this day, but modern technology has helped simplify it. Farrell was keen to avoid adding any new markings to the field. “The pitch is sacrosanct. Even if it’s another dot the size of the penalty mark, we can’t put that on there,” he says. “It’s just not going to fly.”It meant his initial idea of attackers starting from the halfway line, increasing the time and lowering the scoring rate. However, with referees now using vanishing spray, a simple mark 32 yards out — Farrell’s calculation for the best starting point — could be easily added.FIFA gave a cursory look at his proposal, but it didn’t go any further.”I thought it was a bit of a ghost town actually,” Farrell says. “I think maybe it was probably just after the South Africa World Cup, and a lot of people were on holiday. I walked into an enormous lobby. There was no one there. Absolutely no one there. I met with the head of refereeing at the time. I’d corresponded with someone else, I think with the general secretary about this idea, who was the general secretary under (then-president) Sepp Blatter. I think he said to the head of refereeing, ‘This bloke’s going to be in town. He’s got this idea. Just talk to him.’ The head of refereeing, and I’m not slagging him off at all, he didn’t want to be there, and that’s fine.”I think the only reason at that stage they took it seriously was because Blatter was known as someone who always thought penalties were a problem for the sport. Despite all his faults (Blatter is serving a ban from football for corruption), and he had many, many faults, he understood that.”Walking out of FIFA that day, Farrell felt a sense of satisfaction. “I was just happy that I spoke to someone,” he says. “At the time, I didn’t realise just how immature the proposal was. Maybe people will look at it now and think it still has rough edges. I don’t think it does.”Since that meeting in 2010, Farrell has worked on the proposal on and off. He would often improve it, then file it away until another World Cup came around, which would remind him to dust it off and take another look. Ahead of the 2022 World Cup, he did the same, this time using AI software to run simulations that stress tested his proposal.As yet, though, it has never been tested out on the field. He has spoken to some A-League teams to see if they would help run it, but none have taken him up on his offer. He has spoken to someone at IFAB who liked the proposal, but it has yet to be discussed officially by any of the sport’s lawmakers. Farrell, though, will keep plugging on.”There are three procedures (to decide tiebreakers): away goals, extra time and penalties,” he says. “They’ve all got their flaws. One’s gone (away goals). The second one is probably going to disappear soon (extra time). Then we’ll just be left with penalties.”
Diterbitkan : 2026-07-13 12:10:00
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