From a colleague of mine,a proposal to amend the PK rule. I'm not sure about the wisdom of the proposal, (basically, it amounts to allowing referees the discretion to not give penalty kicks for fouls inside the 18 if there was not a genuine scoring chance in the offing) but the comparisons he makes between restorative justice ice in hockey and restorative justice in football are interesting.

I would say around 75% of penalties awarded under the current laws are arguably "obstruction" and should be awarded an indirect free-kick anyway (not a penalty kick) as things stand.

Indirect free kicks are always fun, when they happen inside the box.

75%? Really? I would say that 25% is closer to reality.

The philosophical distinction the author draws is interesting from an intellectual perspective, but changing the rule wouldn't make football penalties any more "restorative" than they already are. It is simply too difficult to reproduce the range of what can constitute "clear goal-scoring opportunities", so all the change would do is make the retributive sanction apply to a smaller range of offenses.

From the comments, it appears that Maclean's doesn't have a lot of readers who know anything about football.

I think that's a given, Urs.

all the change would do is make the retributive sanction apply to a smaller range of offenses.

Well, yeah but that's the point. What's the conversion rate on penalties these days? 80%? 85%? So an award of a PK is like awarding .85 of a goal. For justice to be retributive, the chances that were being prevented by the fouls would have to have a .85 chance of being converted into goals. And for those niggling little ankle-biter fouls right on the 18 yard-line, that's usually not the case.

But you are never going to come close to acheiving that degree of "proportional" retribition because the range of fouls is so great and the range of sanctions is more limited.

The range of probabilities of converting a "clear goalscoring chance" is rather wide as well. A shot feom 17 yards that the keeper has covered isn't the same thing as a tap into an open goal.

It seems to me that if you adopted this approach, you should get rid of the 18 yard box altogether (which would be the equivalent of what one has in hockey).

It also seems to me that the retributive aspect of hockey penalties is just as imprecise. Refs often award a team half a dozen 20-25% chances (i.e., a 2 minute penalty) in response to an equal number of fouls that each individually represent a probability to score of 5% or less (think of penalties in the neutral zone or along the boards, delay of game, or roughing). Looked at in the aggregate, it isn't significantly different from the situation in football.

ursus arctos wrote:
It seems to me that if you adopted this approach, you should get rid of the 18 yard box altogether (which would be the equivalent of what one has in hockey).

I thought of that, too. But there's still the issue of demarcating where the goalkeeper would be able to use his hands, so you'd need to keep that. Although I suppose you could go the Paul Gardner route and reduce it to a 12-yard box - that would solve both problems, maybe.

It also seems to me that the retributive aspect of hockey penalties is just as imprecise. Refs often award a team half a dozen 20-25% chances (i.e., a 2 minute penalty) in response to an equal number of fouls that each individually represent a probability to score of 5% or less (think of penalties in the neutral zone or along the boards, delay of game, or roughing). Looked at in the aggregate, it isn't significantly different from the situation in football.

But isn't that apples and oranges? The equivalent in hockey is the penalty shot, not an ordinary man-advanatge penalty (which is more clearly analogous with a red-card, or even with free-kicks in repsonse to fouls). The penalty shot is a lower percentage opportunity and only awarded in rare cases where the foul *clearly* impeded a goal scoring opportunity. Possibly, this swings the pendulum too far the other way, though.


Anyways, in a higher-scoring sport, a penalty shot (or a penalty for that matter) and the any resulting goals are less likely to affect the final outcome in a sport which average six goals a game (or whatever it is these days) than it does in a sport which averages three goals per game. So it's a bigger deal to offer retributive justice on that scale.