A Rule Proposal to End Manipulations Arising from Penalty Kicks

Aydın Tiryaki

According to current football rules, a penalty kick awarded can be taken by any player on the pitch at that moment, including the goalkeeper. This wide margin of freedom, entirely left to the initiative of the coaching staff or the players on the field, might seem like an innocent tactical liberty at first glance, but it paves the way for dark spots that could cast a shadow over the transparency of the game. Determining the player to take the penalty based on the developments within the game rather than by choice is a structural step that will purify football from external interventions and potential manipulations.

Prevention of Manipulation and External Interventions Today, the fact that the decision of who will take the penalty depends on the initiative of individuals creates an area highly open to abuse, especially in the betting world. Betting options such as “who will take the next penalty” or directly “will the goalkeeper take the penalty” can lead to match-fixing and externally organized interventions due to the flexibility of the decision-making mechanism. Giving the right to take the penalty directly to the fouled player or, in the case of a handball, to the player of the team winning the penalty who last touched the ball with the proposed new rule, takes this decision-making authority away from individuals and ties it entirely to the natural flow of the game. Especially in situations like handballs, hesitations may arise on the field regarding determining the player who last touched the ball. At this point, the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) system has a critical role. VAR will both assist the referee in determining the player who last played the ball at that moment and clarify the exact player to take the penalty when there is hesitation, preventing all discussions on this issue. Since planning who will step up to the ball in advance or changing it with an instant signal during the match will become impossible, the root of such manipulations will be eradicated.

The Goalkeeper Exception and Universal Justice This system is not a restrictive structure that bans goalkeepers from taking penalties; on the contrary, it is a fair framework that subjects everyone to the natural rules of the game. For example, if an accurate long pass sent by a goalkeeper from his own penalty area is directly intercepted by a defending player’s hand in the opponent’s penalty area, the player of the team winning the penalty who last touched the ball will technically be the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper taking the penalty in this rare scenario is not the result of a show-off instruction from the sidelines, but a natural consequence of game intelligence in football. The fact that the probability of this situation occurring is extremely low and dependent on the game eliminates the possibility of someone from the outside manipulating the match. The main purpose of the rules is to minimize the areas open to manipulation, and this degree of difficulty proves how solid a logic the rule is based on.

Strict Rules for Exceptional Situations It is essential that the rule leaves no loopholes in special situations where the player who is determined by the rule to take the penalty (the fouled player or the last player to touch the ball) cannot take the kick, such as being injured during that position or being sent off with a red card. In such a situation, chain rules must come into play to completely disable human initiative. If the player who cannot take the kick is the player who won the penalty by being fouled, the right to take the kick passes directly to the teammate who assisted him in that position. If the player who cannot take the kick is the team player who last touched the ball in a handball situation, this time the right to take the kick passes to the teammate who touched the ball just before him. In this way, determining the penalty taker without leaving any room for external intervention and personal decision in any special situation is guaranteed.

The Reward for Effort and Realistic Statistics The current system allows the effort of a player who wins a penalty for his team by exerting great effort inside the penalty area to be converted into a goal by the team’s designated penalty taker or another player with a goal bonus in his contract. Taking the kick by the player who directly contributed to the creation of the penalty will prevent statistics from being artificially inflated by decisions and ensure that effort finds its full reward on the pitch. Furthermore, this rule will also reduce unwanted ego wars and arguments like “I will take it” among players to zero.

Transparency Against the Traditional Approach Some views advocating the classic understanding of football might argue that taking a penalty kick requires a separate expertise and that leaving the kick only to the fouled player could decrease the penalty conversion rates of the teams. Although these score-oriented concerns frequently voiced in the internet literature are understandable; the transparency of football, the prevention of betting manipulations, and the establishment of the natural justice of the game are values that carry much more weight. Protecting the integrity of the game is always more important than a few goal statistics.

As a result, tying the choice of player for penalty kicks to how the penalty occurred rather than the decisions of individuals will prevent manipulations and bring a fairer, more transparent dimension to football.

Reference: Aydın Tiryaki (2026). A New Rule Proposal for Penalty Kicks in Football. URL: https://aydintiryaki.org/2026/02/15/a-new-rule-proposal-for-penalty-kicks-in-football/

Article Colophon: This study was prepared based on the penalty rule proposal article written by Aydın Tiryaki in February, and the relevant text is cited as a reference. The article was written to present a new rule proposal in order to prevent the processes of a goalkeeper taking a penalty or determining the player to take the penalty in football from being open to external interventions and manipulation. All ideas, observations, and proposed solutions within the text belong entirely to Aydın Tiryaki. Artificial intelligence only provided writing assistant support in line with the author’s directives.

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