At last, away goals rule in club football abolished by UEFA

Finally, UEFA have risen up to scrap the away goals rule for all club competitions effective from 2021/22 season.

It therefore means that there will no longer be an advantage in a two-leg tie for club teams who have scored more goals away from home and if the tie is level after two contests, extra time will be played before the possibility of penalties if it remains level after a further 30 minutes.

A UEFA statement read: ‘Statistics from the mid-1970s until now show a clear trend of continuous reduction in the gap between the number of home/away wins (from 61%/19% to 47%/30%) and the average number of goals per match scored at home/away (from 2.02/0.95 to 1.58/1.15) in men’s competitions, whereas since 2009/10, the average goals per game have remained very steady in the UEFA Women Champions League with the overall average of 1.92 for home teams and 1.6 for away teams.

‘Many different factors may be considered as having an impact on this decline in home advantage. Better pitch quality and standardised pitch sizes, improved stadium infrastructure, higher security conditions, enhanced care of refereeing (and more recently the introduction of technological support such as GLT and VAR), wider and more sophisticated TV coverage of matches, more comfortable travel conditions, a compressed calendar dictating squad turnover, and changes in competition formats are all elements which have affected the way football is played and blurred the lines between playing at home and away.’