In some ways, the penalty kick has always felt as though it favours the attacker. From the moment a penalty is given, the likelihood is that a goal is going to be scored. In fact, between the 2008-2009 season and the 2021-2022 campaign, the conversion rate of penalties was 76.5% in the Primera División and 79.8% in the Eredivisie, giving you some sense of just how often takers see their kicks hit the back of the net.
With that in mind, the recent decision to amend the penalty rule in order to ensure double-kicks aren’t punished feels harsh, but what’s it all about?
Why the Double-Touch Rule was Brought in in the First Place
Back when the rules of football were being decided upon and penalty kicks became a thing, it was decided that the taker should only be allowed to touch the ball once until it had touched another player. The main reasoning behind this was that it would stop a player from being able to hit the ball again in an instance where their penalty had hit the post or the crossbar. In other words, a player seeing the ball strike the post and come back out to them would not be able to just kick the ball into the goal again, which would presumably be all but empty following the goalkeeper’s dive to save the ball.
Instead, kickers were only allowed to touch the ball for a second time if it had been touched by another player in the meantime. This meant that if a goalkeeper pulled off a save and the ball went back to the taker, they could kick it again and score. Similarly, if it hit the post or crossbar and bounced out to a member of the opposition or even a teammate who touched it, the taker would then be able to take possession of the ball again and attempt to score. It was a blunt instrument of a rule around an area of the game that was new at the time, undergoing no changes in the years since.
The Accidental Touch
The big problem with the rule as it was was that it punished players who touched the ball accidentally. Although it is decidedly rare, it is not unheard of for a player to touch the ball with their non-kicking leg, such as by skewing it off the turf into their standing leg, or by touching the ball by accident with their standing leg as they plant it ahead of kicking the ball with their other leg. Obviously, an accidental touch is an entirely different scenario to one where the ball has hit the post or the crossbar and then come back out to the player, allowing them to shoot for a second time.
In such incidents as a player touched the ball twice, even if one of the touches was accidental, the Laws of the Game stated that the kick is ‘recorded as missed’. That means that a player slipping and getting an accidental touch on the ball with their standing leg before kicking it as normal would be counted as a missed penalty on account of the fact that the player was deemed to have gained an unfair advantage by having two touches of the ball. The fact that the initial touch was not a controlled one and was entirely accidental was never considered under the rules as they existed.
The Alvarez Incident that Led to a Rule Change
It was during a last-16 game in the Champions League that a high-profile example of the double-touch penalty occurred. Atlético Madrid player Júlian Alvarez slipped as he was taking his penalty in the shootout, resulting in his standing leg touching the ball before he scored his spot kick. It was disallowed, resulting in Real Madrid, Atlético’s city rivals, winning the penalty shootout and therefore making it through to the next round of the competition. It resulted in UEFA asking for a review of the rule, which eventually led to the International Football Association Board changing it.
@footballwithasb Alvarez penalty vs Real Madrid 🤯 #julianalvarez #atleticodemadrid #realmadridfc #ucl #championsleague ♬ original sound – footballwithasb
The new rule states that a penalty that features a double-touch can be retaken, but only in incidents when the taker scores his attempt. If the penalty is a miss, it remains a miss regardless of whether there was an accidental touch involved or not. This was seen by Premier League fans at the start of the 2025-2026 season when Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta accidentally touched the ball twice when scoring against Manchester United, which was spotted by the Video Assistant Referee. Because he scored with his first attempt, he got to have a second go, which also resulted in a goal.