ADG aims to improve football by eliminating the negative effects players suffer after a missed penalty kick

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Nov 01, 2022, 06:05 ET

MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Next month in Qatar during the world's biggest sporting event we might yet again witness players who miss kicks during a penalty shootout subjected to negative commentary or worse. Attacker Defender Goalkeeper (ADG) is a new alternative to the penalty shootout. ADG features a series of 10 contests where an attacker kicks off from 32 yards and has 20 seconds to score a goal against a defender and a goalkeeper. ADG combines the skill, speed and dynamic beauty of modern football, with the climactic drama and tension of penalties.

While missed penalty kicks usually decide the winner of a shootout, it will be the goals that decide ADG. A negative natured competition will be transformed into a positive one. Where the shootout creates villains and subsequent victims, ADG creates heroes.

"While there's a growing awareness by most sports towards athletes' mental health, football remains stuck in a 1970's time-warp," says Tim Farrell, ADG developer. "You just have to listen to the ex-players who have missed important kicks. Some say it affected them for years. Others were stigmatised and couldn't find work. One describes it as unspeakable pain and said he was psychologically destroyed. Another says it was a nightmare and recounts how their world collapsed. Reading these quotes you're left with no doubt that the shootout fosters serious long-term psychological trauma. And now the situation is even worse. In some cases, even death threats have been made against players, while others have received racial abuse."

Farrell continues, "Is this what we really want for our sport? This beautiful game deserves a tie-breaker that rewards and showcases players for their immense skill and athleticism. Not one that penalizes them, or gives one team a 20% advantage. The people who run the game need to look for solutions."

In addition to improving player welfare, ADG also aims to resolve the penalty shootout's two other major problems: it fails to showcase the game, and the team kicking first has a 20% advantage.

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