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About the “Away Goals Rule†in Association Football. Does Scrapping the Rule Increase the Fairness of the Game?

Author

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  • Francisco J. Bahamonde-Birke
  • Ramón Andrés Bahamonde-Birke

Abstract

The present study analyzes all major international football tournaments organized by UEFA and CONMEBOL during a period of 30 years to assess the impact of the away goals rule (AGR). The study takes advantage of natural experiment given by the differentiated application of the AGR by both confederations, in order to assess the efficacy and the consequences of the rule in terms of both the total amount of goals being scored (the original intention of the rule) and the teams that progressed onto the next stages. The results show that the AGR seems to have failed to fulfill its original goal of increasing both scoring by teams playing away and scoring in general. The AGR is found to have a significant impact favoring the chances of the team starting the series at home. However, it still does not translate into a higher probability of progressing onto the next stage than the team closing the series at home. Closing the series at home has an intrinsic advantage, which is only countered, although not completely, by the impact of the AGR. Regarding tiebreakers, we observe that closing the series at home has a positive impact no matter whether overtimes with AGR or penalty shootouts are used as tiebreakers. However, playing an overtime, when no AGR is set in place has a determining influence favoring the team closing the series at home.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco J. Bahamonde-Birke & Ramón Andrés Bahamonde-Birke, 2023. "About the “Away Goals Rule†in Association Football. Does Scrapping the Rule Increase the Fairness of the Game?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(3), pages 310-328, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:24:y:2023:i:3:p:310-328
    DOI: 10.1177/15270025221128957
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. László Csató, 2024. "Club coefficients in the UEFA Champions League: Time for shift to an Elo-based formula," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 119-134, March.
    2. Yildirim, Mustafa & Bilman, Mustafa Erhan, 2025. "New rules, new game? The effects of the away goals rule removal and video assistant referee adoption on game dynamics in UEFA Champions League ties," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 78-96.
    3. L'aszl'o Csat'o, 2023. "Club coefficients in the UEFA Champions League: Time for shift to an Elo-based formula," Papers 2304.09078, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    4. Yildirim, Mustafa & Bilman, Mustafa Erhan, 2025. "Second-leg home advantage no more? The impact of video assistant referee and no away goals rule in elite soccer," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 1097-1112.

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