FIFA is preparing to change how penalty shootouts work mid-tournament, ahead of the World Cup knockout rounds that begin Sunday. Not before the competition. Not next season. Now, with the whole world watching.
The current format involves two coin tosses — one to choose ends, one to decide who shoots first. FIFA referee chief Pierluigi Collina wants to collapse that into a single toss. The winning captain picks which end to shoot toward, and then the opposing captain decides who goes first. The logic: spread the advantage rather than handing everything to one flip.
Fast-tracking a rule change that usually takes years
To get this done in time, FIFA has gone straight to the International FA Board — football's law-making body — who held a video conference Saturday to fast-track approval. Normally, a change like this takes months of consultation. This one is being done in days.
It's a trial, not a permanent rule change, so clubs in the FA Cup or League Cup won't suddenly be affected unless their governing bodies specifically petition IFAB to adopt it. But if it works at a World Cup — arguably the highest-pressure shootout environment on the planet — the pressure to roll it out more broadly will be real.
The timing isn't random. Arsenal just lost the Champions League final to PSG in a shootout after losing both coin tosses. France won the toss in the 2022 World Cup final, went first — and still lost to Argentina. The anecdotal case against the current system has been building for years.
David Dein's more radical idea never went away
Former Arsenal chairman David Dein floated something bolder back in 2023: take shootouts at both ends of the pitch simultaneously, so neither team faces opposition fans when stepping up. "The more I watched shootouts, the more I felt it was unfair on the team who have to take their kicks in front of the opposing fans," he wrote.
Dein's proposal never gained traction with IFAB, partly because of logistics, partly because of that one word he mocked himself: tradition. FIFA's current adjustment is far more modest — one coin flip instead of two — but it signals that the sport's power brokers are finally willing to question whether shootouts, as designed, are actually fair.
Whether this small tweak changes outcomes is debatable. What it does change is which captain holds the deciding card. In a shootout already decided by inches and nerves, that's not nothing.
