Apparently a Draw Is No Longer Exciting Enough
Football Australia has had an idea.
Which is always an exciting sentence.
From 2026, every drawn regular season match in the Australian Championship will go to a penalty shootout.
Not because somebody needs to progress.
Not because it is a final.
Just because, apparently, a draw is no longer entertaining enough.
The match will still officially be a draw.
Except there will be a winner.
But it is still a draw.
The winner gets two points.
The loser gets one.
Simple.
Clear.
Completely normal.
A committee somewhere is very proud of this.
Fixing What Wasn't Broken
Three points for a win.
One for a draw.
Zero for a loss.
It has worked perfectly well for decades.
Possibly too well.
Somewhere along the line someone looked at football and thought:
You know what this needs?
More content.
More theatre.
More engagement.
And penalties.
Obviously penalties.
So now two teams can play 90 minutes, finish level, then take spot kicks so somebody can win a bonus point for a match they did not win.
Groundbreaking.
Somebody should tell FIFA.
Nobody Won, But Somebody Won
Imagine explaining it to somebody new to football.
"Who won?"
"Nobody. It was a draw."
"So why are they taking penalties?"
"To see who wins."
"But you just said it was a draw."
"It is."
"So the penalty winner wins?"
"No."
"What do they get?"
"An extra point."
"So they do win?"
"No. The result is still a draw."
"Then what was the point of the penalties?"
"Excitement."
Right.
Glad we cleared that up.
A League Table, Plus Penalties
A league is meant to reward performance across a season.
Wins.
Draws.
Losses.
Consistency.
Grit.
The ability to go away and earn a point.
Now we can add:
Being good at penalties after a draw.
Two teams could finish with identical wins, draws and losses and land apart on the table because one goalkeeper dives the right way more often.
That is not league performance.
That is a shootout wearing the league's clothes.
An Interesting Way to Encourage Parking the Bus
If I am 1–1 with ten minutes left and I have a good keeper and five reliable takers, why would I chase a win?
I would sit on the draw and fancy my odds from twelve yards.
In the name of excitement, we may have just incentivised parking the bus.
Bold strategy.
Innovation, Engagement and Other Dangerous Words
There is a bigger thing here too.
Football administrators seem increasingly terrified of leaving football alone.
Everything needs to be more innovative.
More engaging.
More entertaining.
More marketable.
More dramatic.
More something.
Sometimes a match is brilliant.
Sometimes it is terrible.
Sometimes it ends 0–0.
That is sport.
Not every 90 minutes needs a manufactured climax.
Football has survived quite successfully without needing somebody to add a bonus feature at the end.
Japan Did It, So We Should Too
Japan tried something similar.
The old NSL did it in 1994/95.
Both are offered as reassurance.
We also used fax machines in 1994.
Big shoulder pads too.
Not campaigning for either to come back.
"Japan is trying it" is not a reason to redesign one of the simplest scoring systems in world football.
By that logic we should also adopt Japan's train timetables.
That one I would actually take.
Every Draw Now Has a Winner. No, It Doesn't.
The official line says every draw now has a winner.
No.
It doesn't.
That is why it is called a draw.
That is the definition of the word.
League football is different from knockout football.
That difference is the whole point.
So What Was Actually Wrong?
What exactly was wrong with three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss?
From where I am sitting, nothing.
It worked.
It was understood.
It was fair.
Apparently that was the problem.