Uefa has made a very shocking decision of removing the away goals rule in the knockout stages of the champions league with immediate effect. This decision was so sudden and harsh and might even hamper the quality of the European Competitions from next season. With the announcement of this decision, fans have flooded social media with mixed opinions about their views on this rash action.
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According to the fans, the away goals rule made the knockout stages of the Champions League much more competitive and even compared to regular matches. If a team scores an away goal in the second leg, the pressure on the opposition is doubled since their team has to score more than one goal. This decision was made to abolish the half-century-old rule after President Aleksander Ceferin insisted it no longer served its purpose of trying to encourage attacking football. Ties will now be decided by extra time and penalties in the case of a draw over two legs. Ceferin said: “The impact of the rule now runs counter to its original purpose as, in fact, it now dissuades home teams – especially in first legs – from attacking, because they fear conceding a goal that would give their opponents a crucial advantage.UEFA has added a new competition, the UEFA Conference league to ensure teams from the lower leagues can participate in Europa but teams that would be participating in these leagues for the first time won’t be able to enjoy the away goals rule and the intensity with which the game has to be played. Statistics since the mid-1970s show a clear trend of continuous reduction in the gap between home-away wins (from 61%-19% to 47%-30%) and the average number of goals per match scored at home-away (from 2.02-0.95 to 1.58-1.15) in men’s competitions. Fans have expressed their shock on social media and are very against the abolishment of this rule. Their view is fair enough, and this would make the competition less attractive according to them.
Fans also tend to believe that the UEFA should focus more on the racism side of things and ensure how football can be played moderately and without any trouble. It will be seen how the level of intensity drops in the knockout stages next season. Till then, we can only wait and contemplate the organisation’s decision.
