ADG Backstory
Origins, Development and Evolution
Newcastle KB United and Skippy
ADG was developed in 2008 by myself, Tim Farrell. Now some people are going to assume that I’m a disgruntled English fan who has suffered years of shootout torment, and that’s why I created ADG. I’m actually Australian, and as fortune would have it, Australia have now qualified for two World Cups on penalties.
So, as a Socceroos fan, these were obviously unforgettable moments. The point is that ADG isn’t about national allegiances, or who has been successful in shootouts and who hasn’t. ADG is about the beauty and exhilaration of football and trying to improve the sport.
Growing up in Newcastle, Australia, football was part of my life from an early age, playing for local clubs Merewether United and Hamilton Azzurri. I was a totally hopeless player, but that did nothing to diminish my love for the game.
Newcastle has always been predominantly rugby league territory, but football has deep roots there. My uncle was involved with Newcastle KB United during the early years of the National Soccer League, so attending home matches became part of my childhood. Some of the names I remember are Joe Senkalski, Col Curran, Malcolm McClelland and Peter Tredinnick. They will not mean much to most people, but these were our local heroes.
KB United occasionally brought in guest stars, including Craig Johnston. Here was a kid from Lake Macquarie, on the edge of the football world, who somehow made it all the way to Liverpool, won the European Cup, scored in an FA Cup final and became part of one of the greatest club sides in football history. Johnston who was affectionately known as “Skippy”, described himself as “the worst player in the best team in the world,” which is a line that still makes me smile. He was one of our own, and for a kid growing up in Newcastle, he made the impossible seem possible.
Johnny and Les and SBS-TV
As I got older, football in Australia was still fighting for its place in the national sporting culture. It was often treated as an outsider sport, but broadcaster Les Murray and former Socceroo Johnny Warren kept the flame alive. Les had that wonderfully dry sense of humour and a reassuring calm. Johnny was football’s humble, softly spoken evangelist, endlessly urging Australians to embrace the sport the rest of the world already worshipped. Together, they helped a generation of fans look beyond our shores and see football not as a marginalised sport for “Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters”, but as the true world game.
SBS-TV became a lifeline for football fans. From On The Ball through to The World Game, Australian fans were connected to something much bigger than our own sporting backyard. World Cups, English football, European football, international stars and football culture. In an era before streaming and social media, that mattered enormously.
I remember clearly the 1986 FIFA World Cup and Maradona leading Argentina to victory. His solo goal against England remains one of my all time favourites, later matched by a 19-year-old Lionel Messi’s near carbon copy for Barcelona against Getafe. Watching the World Cup from Australia requires a certain commitment. Matches are usually played in the middle of the night and in the dead of winter, so many of my early World Cup memories involve watching from under the doona or huddling around a small bar heater.
Growing up in Australia also meant growing up around other sports that constantly evolved. Rugby league, cricket and AFL all changed rules, formats and structures over time. Football’s traditions are part of what makes it special, but the game can also be deeply resistant to progressive and necessary change. That has never sat quite right with me, because regardless of what FIFA thinks, football belongs to everyone. It became the world’s game because working class communities around the globe embraced it and made it their own.
Socceroos and the World Cup
In 2005 came one of the most emotional moments in Australian football history. Australia had only appeared at one previous FIFA World Cup, in 1974. Thirty-two years of heartbreak, near misses and frustration followed. Johnny Warren, a member of Australia’s 1974 World Cup squad, had died the previous year, having spent much of his adult life championing football in Australia and dreaming of the day the Socceroos would return to the world stage.
I watched the World Cup qualifier against Uruguay just like millions of other Australians. When John Aloisi scored the winning penalty, the country erupted. Then came Craig Foster’s unforgettable cry in commentary, “Johnny Warren!” Even now, thinking about that moment still makes me emotional.
For Australian fans, it was far more than just qualification. For the first time in a generation, we were not just going to be watching the world’s biggest sporting event, we were part of it. The buzz around the 2006 World Cup captured Australia in a way few sporting moments have. Only the extraordinary national response to the Matildas’ 2023 World Cup campaign has eclipsed it. This was Australia embracing the world game on a scale not even Johnny Warren could have imagined.
However, some of my strongest memories are also of the game’s cruellest moments. The 1994 World Cup final was another defining memory. Roberto Baggio had scored five goals in Italy’s three knockout matches, including a late brace to rescue them against Nigeria. In the shootout, it was left to the “Divine Ponytail” to keep Italian hopes alive, and of course we all know what happened. In Australia, where football has always been deeply connected to migrant communities, you could feel the knife go through hearts at the Italian clubs across the country.
The English novelist A.S. Byatt wrote, “One does not remember the winners. One remains haunted by the losers.” 58 Baggio later said, “It affected me for years. It is the worst moment of my career. I still dream about it. If I could erase a moment, it would be that one.” 49
2008 and the Birth of ADG
That emotional burden has long troubled people inside the game. Thirty years ago, the late, great Terry Venables, who no one would have mistaken for a new-age sensitive guy, said, “We ought not be subjecting people to this kind of pressure. Penalties put too much strain on one player.” 22
Since then the situation has only gotten worse. Today’s players have to regularly endure vile abuse, racism and even death threats. The exponential increase in online gambling adds another toxic layer. The author and journalist, Robert McCrum writes, “My great-grandfather invented the penalty kick, but it was FIFA who weaponised it.” 62
After Italy beat France on penalties at the 2006 FIFA World Cup ideas began gestating again. However, it wasn’t until the 2008 UEFA Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United, that I sat down one freezing Melbourne morning and really began to flesh out an alternative. Once again, I wasn’t a Chelsea supporter who had just suffered a devastating defeat, I was just thinking about improving the game.
The underlying problem with the penalty shootout is the 75% conversion rate and the resulting expectation that the kicker should always score. How do we change that expectation? How do we make it more difficult to score? How do we preserve the dramatic tension of penalties, while creating something that better reflects the modern game? That line of thinking led to the idea of including a defender.
The challenge then became turning that simple concept into a credible football format. Something that captured the skill, speed, athleticism and unpredictability of open play, preserved the inherent dramatic tension of penalties, while also remaining efficient, fair and practical within the Laws of the Game. At the time, I do not think I fully appreciated the scale of the challenge I was taking on.
Modifications and Simulations
ADG has matured substantially since it was first devised in 2008. It was originally conceived with the attacker starting from the centre mark and a 30-second time limit. The football pitch is sacrosanct and unchanged for close to a century, so I knew that the idea of adding even a small mark would be very controversial.
But feedback and rigorous analysis eventually revealed problems. The original format made scoring far too difficult, with projected conversion rates likely below 10%. ADG was always intended to make scoring meaningfully harder than penalties, but not so difficult that sudden death could potentially become drawn out and impractical.
What has changed significantly in the past 12 months is the analytical capability available to test ideas like this properly. The core concept had existed for years, but the ability to rigorously model scoring probabilities, contest duration, player exposure, foul incidence and safety assumptions simply was not as accessible even a few years ago. That has allowed ADG to evolve from a conceptual football idea into a much more evidence-based proposal.
Extensive computer simulation eventually identified 32 yards, combined with a 15‑second time limit, as the approximate 30% scoring sweet spot. That number matters because it creates a dramatically different psychological environment to penalties. It makes scoring difficult enough to eliminate the expectation that the attacker should automatically succeed, while still delivering excitement, unpredictability and efficient sudden death resolution.
That evolution also led to the development of the ADG mark. Rather than permanently altering the field, it is a temporary mark applied only at the conclusion of the second half. Referees can locate it by pacing 10 yards from the apex of the penalty arc toward halfway, using the same method already used to measure defensive walls.
Importantly, none of these changes were cosmetic. Each refinement was a response to a practical problem, whether that was scoring balance, player safety, officiating realism or the need to preserve football’s underlying character. The objective was never change for its own sake, but a format that could genuinely withstand scrutiny.
Player Safety Evolution
Player safety analysis has become a cornerstone of the proposal in recent years. Collision risk, foul incidence, player exposure, disciplinary effects and conservative injury estimates have progressively been incorporated using elite level benchmarks and sports science research. What began as an idea about deciding matches more fairly has also evolved into a broader player welfare proposal for the modern game.
Another major development was the introduction of the mandatory 10-minute Recovery Interval. This is not simply a pause before ADG begins. It reflects the broader player welfare thinking behind the format. Players are given a genuine recovery window before the high intensity demands of ADG begin, rather than being pushed through another 30 minutes of extra time.
Referee procedures, scorecards, player sequencing and officiating protocols were also gradually refined to ensure the format could realistically operate within the practical realities of elite football. Taken together, these changes transformed ADG from a rough idea into a complete operational framework, ready to be trialled.
Over time, the concept also evolved from being simply an alternative to penalty shootouts into a broader alternative to both extra time and penalties. That shift reflects changes in football itself.
Modern elite players are being pushed to unprecedented workloads, with some playing 70 or more matches in a season. Congested calendars, climate pressures, travel demands and the physical intensity of the modern game have forced difficult conversations about player welfare. Football’s three traditional procedures for resolving drawn knockout matches, away goals, extra time and penalties, increasingly look like solutions designed for a different era. The away goals rule has effectively gone, and recent reporting suggests UEFA may remove extra time in the near future, leaving 90 minutes followed by penalties as the standard knockout model.
The Road Ahead
At the same time, the social costs of penalty shootouts have intensified. Kick It Out and others have warned that repeated racist abuse after missed penalties will inevitably make black players increasingly reluctant to take them. The rapid growth of online gambling has added a new layer of betting-related hostility and personal threats and this will only increase in the coming years.
Football has always carried pressure, and that is part of what makes sport compelling. But there is a meaningful difference between pressure that is inherent to competition and pressure amplified by structural design and mass online abuse. That distinction matters.
The game, and the world around it, have changed dramatically since penalty shootouts were introduced in the 1970s. ADG has evolved in part as a response not only to player welfare and match quality concerns, but also to the growing human costs of the current system.
In many ways, ADG has evolved alongside football itself. What began as an idea to improve how matches are decided has matured into a broader proposal addressing fairness, player welfare, spectacle and the changing demands of the modern game.
Recent media interest, including interviews with ESPN UK and BBC World Service, suggests the conversation about how drawn matches are decided may be beginning to broaden as well. The immediate goal remains simple: meaningful discussion within IFAB, and if warranted, officially sanctioned trials.
ADG has largely been a solo project, but I have always assumed that any serious pathway forward would involve experienced football minds helping refine and improve it. I’m proud of how far ADG has come, but the journey continues.
Enjoy the game,
Tim Farrell
- McCrum, Robert, The Penalty Kick: The Story of a Gamechanger. Notting Hill Editions, 5 November 2024[↩]