The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is tasked with a simple job: making football better, by changing laws that add value to the beautiful game. As such, they don’t always get it right… in fact, some of their proposed rule changes over the years have been nothing short of bonkers.
IFAB have approved a series of rule changes for the 2025/26 season – more on those shortly, while they’re also said to be mulling over a series of other tweaks that could be implemented in time for the World Cup in 2026. Amongst them is the rather controversial idea of outlawing goals being scored from penalty kick rebounds…
On the Rebound
For more than a century, penalty takers – or their onrushing teammates – have been able to score from the rebound if their kick is saved or hits the woodwork and bounces back out. But newspaper reports suggest that IFAB will be presented with a case to outlaw goals being scored from penalty rebounds.
There are those in football who believe that the penalty kick is in itself enough of a, erm, penalty for the defending team to suffer; the argument goes that for rebounds from spot kicks to be allowed, which often manifest themselves as simple tap-in finishes, the defence is effectively punished twice.
Instead, detractors want to follow a system similar to that used for penalty shots in ice hockey, where the puck is declared dead after the shot is taken – whether it ends in a goal, save or rebounds back into play. In football, a similar system could be used… with a goal kick awarded to the defending team if the ball ricochets back into play from a penalty via the goalkeeper or woodwork.
According to The Sun, the idea has ‘backing’ and could be presented to IFAB as a possible rule change prior to the World Cup in North America and Mexico in the summer of 2026.
Tearing Up the Rulebook
Alongside the penalty rebounds motion, two other rules involving VAR could also be brought to the table. The first relates to second yellow card offences, which of course result in a red card being shown. As it stands, VAR can only intervene in matters relating to straight reds, but under proposals football chiefs want incidents where a second yellow card might be shown to also be scrutinised by the video referee.
Separately, VAR could also be granted the power to disallow goals scored from corners where a ‘clear error’ had been made to award the ‘contentious’ set piece in the first place. Meanwhile, IFAB have rubber stamped a series of rule changes for the 2025/26 season, which individual leagues and competitions can then opt to implement as they wish.
The first is the ‘only the captain’ rule, which has been designed to help protect referees and match officials from being approached by a melee of incensed players. Instead, as the name implies, competitions that implement the ‘only the captain’ ruling will allow for only the designated skipper, identified by their armband, to approach the referee and make their feelings known – similar to the approach used in rugby.
The rule change will be implemented by the Premier League in 2025/26, with an alternative player designated to speak to the referee if the captain is a goalkeeper. Another new law, implemented for the first time at the Club World Cup in 2025, will see goalkeepers allowed just eight seconds to hold onto the ball.
Once they have five seconds of the count left, the referee will raise their hand… should the keeper hold onto the ball for more than the eight seconds allowed, a corner kick will be awarded to the opposing team. And in another change first debuted in the Carabao Cup back in January, the referee will be allowed to announce VAR decisions – and the reasons for them – over their microphone at stadia in which the technology is available.
“Following successful trials, competitions now have the option of the referee announcing and explaining decisions after a VAR ‘review’ or lengthy VAR ‘check’,” read the IFAB rulebook amends.
Paying the Penalty
Of course, the rule change that is most likely to cause the ultimate controversy is taking away penalty rebounds, which have been a feature of football since the 1800s. You can perhaps see the argument about a team being punished twice, but will outlawing rebounds remove the possibility for some outstanding, organic drama from the beautiful game?
If rebounds had been prohibited years ago, some rather famous goals would have been chalked from existence. Can you remember the semi-finals of the rescheduled EURO 2020 in July 2021? Harry Kane bundled an injury time winner home for England against Denmark… that, of course, was a rebound from a penalty.
An unforgettable moment when @HKane scored this. ❤️🔥
Last time out against Denmark… at #EURO2020! pic.twitter.com/B045YO3jwW
— England (@England) June 20, 2024
And what if rebound goals from penalties had been prohibited in 2005… would we have been shorn of the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’? In the Champions League final of that year, Liverpool found themselves 0-3 down at half-time against a rampaging AC Milan side.
They rallied with goals in the second period from Steven Gerrard and Vladimir Smicer, before being awarded a penalty in the 60th minute. Xabi Alonso’s kick was saved by Duda, but the Spaniard reacted quickest to reach the rebound first and slam home Liverpool’s equalising third goal.
And then? Well, the rest is history: the Reds hoisted the famous Champions League trophy after winning out on, you guessed it, penalties. Two incredible moments of footballing history… neither of which would have happened had penalty rebounds been outlawed already.
Even some of the legends of the modern era have profited from penalty rebounds, with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo both finding the net after their initial kicks were saved for Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively.
