Are Penalties Unfair?

Penalties in the Premier League have a 78% chance of being scored. But not all attacking scenarios have the same high chance. Is this an unfair advantage to the attacking side? Should the rules be changed?

Jon Mackenzie looks at the stats to find out how and why penalties are overpowered. Illustrated by Marco Bevilacqua.

Follow Tifo Football:

Listen to the Tifo Football podcast:

About Tifo Football:
Tifo loves football. We create In-depth tactical, historical and geopolitical breakdowns of the beautiful game.

We know there’s an appetite for thoughtful, intelligent content. For stuff that makes the complicated simple.

We provide analysis on the Premier League, Champions League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, World Cup and more.

Our podcasts interview some of the game’s leading figures. And our editorial covers football with depth and insight.

#Penalties

[smallz]

To spice things up...The player that won the Penalty should have to take it.

[afasia]

I think this analysis doesn't factor in the general impact of having penalties in the game. Defenders are more careful in the box and thus leaving the attackers more room for scoring. Also penalties add to the overall goals, and games often become more interesting after a side has scored. So penalties could be increasing the overall non-pen xG. Penalties affect the game in a deep way and removing them would have a domino effect and make the game more boring to watch. Quite a complex metagame problem. I think penalties are a healthy mechanic which could be spiced up a, tweaking the pen box a bit and maybe making so the one who earned the pen has to take it.

[JP-qyhw]

A subtle change I would like to see for in game penalties, is to treat them like a shoot out penalty. One shot, no rebounds and no encroachment. It feels imbalanced that the keeper potentially has to save multiple times, and has to deal with onrushing players. It should just be a one vs one, one attempt thing.

[tatsuyasigh]

I think the ineffecient nature of football (in terms of scoring) makes this a legit question. A freethrow in basketball could be just as OP, but its impact on the outcome of the game is nowhere near the level of a penalty as scoring isn't a difficult task in the NBA. The punishment for fouls in the box (many of which are debatable soft fouls/questionable handball) is quite often significantly more severe than the actual foul deserves

[Thodoris_Ioannidis]

Question: given the fact that we(fans and Premier League clubs long time before us) have the knowledge of penalty being overpowered, are there any data to show that teams tend to commit fewer penalties than they did before? In my opinion, penalties are what the word suggest, penalties. They have been given in order to prevent the player to do it again, so it makes sense the price to be higher than the action itself.

[stevechapman]

I think indirect free kicks need to be utilised more

[thedark]

Benzema against osasuna 's goalkeeper would like to disagree

[Tarnisheddddd]

If penalties weren't overpowered, everyone would commit more and more fouls in penalty box and the game would die

[lucasborja]

My stance would be the penalty kick is kicked from where the foul occurred, but unlike a free kick it has no barrier, this would apply to every penalty past the penalty spot, penalties closer to goal than the penalty spot would be taken at the normal penalty spot.

[zeluisbelo]

They add some spice to the game. It gives hope to a weaker side, you can always dream and turn around a game. But yeah, completely overpowered.
I would still keep them though. The more goals the better. The only change I would do is to make the player who was faulted to be the one taking the penalty. Gives a bit of uncertainty and it would end with the inflated goal scores of some players, making them more representative of their talent.

[joepiekl]

Does expected goals take into account passes that the player might be about to make to someone in a better position, or is it just a measure of how likely that individual player is to score from their current position? Because obviously someone on the edge of the area might not be likely to score themselves, but if Haaland is steaming unmarked into the centre of the goal, then the chances of a goal being scored increases significantly.

[BrockMak]

4:48 That actually came from ice hockey. The rule is that the striker must maintain forward movement. If he loses the ball, he cannot go backwards to retrieve the ball before going forward again.

[Rumpole]

Perhaps a solution would be to bring the penalty spot out further to the edge of the box. That way you keep the basic traditions of the penalty kick but have simply increased the distance to goal. Not sure by how much it would solve the over powered issue but it would certainly create a fairer balance.

[alanmarquez]

Nice analysis but you assumed that the position where the penalty was awarded would also have been the shooting position, while the attacking player might have been working the way towards a much higher scoring % position or assisting a better positioned teammate

[Tsinglung]

One of the many key points you didn't mention is, the defender has to put in the challenge and commit a foul before a penalty could be given, at least theoretically speaking. There is an element of judgement (mis-judgement) by the defender than just xG and percentage of scoring from open play

[BOABModels]

Netherlands Vs Mexico at World Cup 2014 - having equalised in the 88th minute, the Dutch win a 90+ minute penalty when Arjen Robben goes down. He's basically on the touchline and has several defenders around him - there's no chance they are scoring here.
Huntelaar scores and Mexico are out of the world cup.

[tim..indeed]

After just watching the World Cup final where 3 penalties were awarded I wholly agree with this video.

[MetalManiac]

You are presenting some very interesting data with a good hypothesis and I would like to point out that the way you present your data assumes that every player awarded a penalty would have otherwise taken a shot from that exact spot, which is not likely.
E.g, every penalty awarded from a GK foul would have otherwise seen the player take a shot on an empty goal, where we must expect much higher xG than 30-60%.
In addition, avoiding a tackle in the penalty area gives you either a 1v1 against the keeper or the chance of playing a pass for an open goal shot. These very real and very relevant options are not accounted for if setting areas, where penalties are won against areas, from which shots taken have an x% chance of scoring a goal. And then there's handballs, too.

I would be very interested in the "cleaned up" data and would be looking forward to it if you were to dive further into the matter and publish a second video.

Kind regards.

[andrewharing]

The point of penalties isn't just to replicate the odds of scoring that existed before the foul. It's also to discourage fouling. If, when you're defending in the box, the penalty for fouling the attacker is no worse than the situation you're already in, there's no deterrent and you might as well take the risk of fouling them. If, on the other hand, the penalty is much worse than the situation you're in, it makes you much less likely to commit fouls.

One problem I have at the moment is that there are instances where a player can deliberately foul someone, say when the team is on the break, and accept a yellow card in return for preventing a potential goalscoring situation, knowing that the award of the free kick will give the defending team time to reorganise and avert the threat. I think those fouls should be straight red card offences, because otherwise there's just no real deterrent.

If we were to change the penalty rule so that penalties didn't significantly increase the chance of scoring, we'd be in a situation where defenders commit a lot more fouls in the box, just as we're currently in a situation where players commit a lot of fouls in midfield when the opposition is breaking.

[TheJoet]

I don't think this matters, fairness doesn't come into it. The jeopardy a penalty creates, generates excitement and makes the game more exciting for the spectator