Penalty Kick Rules in Football: Retakes and Encroachment

At St James' Park on 15 January 2023, Aleksandar Mitrović of Fulham slipped as he struck a penalty against Newcastle United. The ball hit his standing foot and looped into the net. The goal was disallowed and Newcastle restarted with an indirect free kick, because the kicker had touched the ball twice. Under the Law as it is now written, he would have taken the kick again.

That change is one of several made to Law 14 in recent seasons, and the penalty kick rules in football are tighter in some places and more forgiving in others than most supporters in England assume. The essentials are fixed: the ball on the mark 12 yards out, a kicker the referee can identify, the goalkeeper on the line between the posts, and everybody else outside the area, outside the arc and behind the ball. A penalty is retaken when an offence by the defending side spoils a kick that did not go in, or when an offence by the attacking side helps one that did. What follows covers each requirement and each retake in turn.

What Law 14 requires before the whistle

A referee awarding a penalty at Wembley and one awarding it on a council pitch in Leeds go through the same checklist. None of it is optional, and the kick is not taken until the referee is satisfied on every item and blows the whistle.

Who or what	Requirement	When it applies
The ball	Stationary, with part of it touching or overhanging the centre of the penalty mark	Before the whistle
The goal	Posts, crossbar and net not moving	Before the whistle
The kicker	Clearly identified to the referee	Before the whistle
The goalkeeper	On the goal line, facing the kicker, between the posts, not touching the frame or the net	Until the ball is kicked
Every other player	Outside the penalty area, at least 10 yards from the mark, behind the mark, on the field of play	Until the ball is kicked

The fifth row holds four separate conditions and players break each of them in different ways. Outside the penalty area is the obvious one. At least 10 yards from the mark is why the arc exists: the edge of the area is 18 yards from the goal line and the mark is 12, so a player standing on the 18-yard line directly behind the ball is only six yards from it. The arc pushes him back. Behind the mark stops anyone standing level with the kicker out near the side of the area, which the other two conditions would permit. On the field of play stops a player waiting beyond the goal line.

Goal line to penalty mark12yards

Mark to every other player10yards

Goal line to edge of the area18yards

Width of the goal8yards

Measurements from Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, given in yards as marked on English pitches. The metric equivalents are 11 m, 9.15 m, 16.5 m and 7.32 m.

Show the numbers

The distances that define a penalty kick

Item	Value
Goal line to penalty mark	12yards
Mark to every other player	10yards
Goal line to edge of the area	18yards
Width of the goal	8yards

Identifying the kicker

Any player of the team awarded the penalty may take it. It does not have to be the player who was fouled, and it can be the goalkeeper. What the Law insists on is that the referee and the opposing goalkeeper know who it is.

That matters because of a trick the wording closes off. If one player places the ball and steps back as though to take it, and a team-mate then runs in and strikes it, the team-mate has taken a kick he was not identified for. The referee stops play, cautions the player who took it, and gives an indirect free kick to the defending side.

The whistle is compulsory

A penalty is one of the few restarts that cannot be taken quickly. The referee must signal. A kick struck before the whistle is simply not a penalty kick, and it is taken again regardless of where the ball went.

What the kicker may do: forward, feints and the run-up

The ball must be kicked forward. The Law adds, with unusual specificity, that backheeling is permitted provided the ball moves forward. A kick that goes backwards is an offence, and the restart is an indirect free kick to the defending team whether or not anything came of it.

The ball is in play the moment it is kicked and clearly moves. From then on the kicker is under one restriction: he may not touch it again until it has touched another player.

The feint

Feinting has its own clause, and the line it draws is narrow. Feinting during the run-up is permitted. The stutter, the slowed approach, the change of pace, the long pause mid-stride with the goalkeeper frozen on the line: all legal. They are regarded as part of the contest between two players.

What is forbidden is feinting to kick the ball once the run-up has been completed. A kicker who arrives at the ball, plants his standing foot, swings at it and deliberately stops short, waits for the goalkeeper to dive, and then rolls it into the other corner has offended. The referee cautions him and awards an indirect free kick to the defence. If the ball went in, the goal does not count.

The distinction was written into the Laws in 2010, just before the World Cup in South Africa, in response to a fashion for the full stop at the ball that had spread from Brazilian football, where it was called the paradinha. The Board's view was that a dummy at the ball, as opposed to a hesitation on the way to it, was unsporting.

The practical difficulty is that a run-up has no defined end. Some penalty takers approach in a series of skips and hops and arrive almost stationary. Referees look for the moment the standing foot is planted beside the ball and the kicking leg begins its swing. Anything before that is run-up. A stop after it is a feint.

Lace, toe, chip

Nothing in Law 14 regulates how the ball is struck beyond direction. The chipped penalty down the middle, the side-foot roll and the toe-poke are all the same in Law. So is a penalty taken with no run-up at all.

The goalkeeper's line under the penalty kick rules

For most of the twentieth century the goalkeeper had to stand on the line without moving his feet until the ball was struck. He has been allowed to move sideways since 1997. Forward movement is the thing the Law restricts, and the wording has been rewritten three times in recent years in an attempt to make it enforceable.

The current text says that when the ball is kicked, the defending goalkeeper must have at least part of one foot touching, in line with, or behind, the goal line.

One foot dates from the 2019/20 edition. Before then, the requirement to remain on the line was read as applying to both feet, which goalkeepers ignored and referees did not police. Allowing one foot to come forward recognised how goalkeepers actually dive, by stepping out with the leading leg, and was meant to be a rule that could be enforced strictly.

In line with covers the goalkeeper who has jumped, so that his back foot is in the air above the line and not on it.

Or behind was added for 2022/23. Without it, a goalkeeper who began a yard behind the line and had one foot still behind it when the kick was struck was technically offending, despite having made his own job harder.

Touching the frame and distracting the kicker

Two further duties apply until the kick is taken. The goalkeeper must not be touching the goalposts, the crossbar or the net. And, in wording that arrived for 2023/24, the goalkeeper must not behave in a way that unfairly distracts the kicker, for example by delaying the taking of the kick or touching the frame of the goal.

That second clause followed a period in which goalkeepers had turned the wait before a penalty into a performance: kicking the posts, wandering out to the mark, talking to the kicker, throwing the ball away. The Law does not forbid a goalkeeper from moving or from trying to put a kicker off by presence alone. It asks referees to stop behaviour that shows no respect for the game or the opponent, and the first tool is a warning.

What an offence by the goalkeeper costs

Less than it used to. Until 2020 a goalkeeper who came off the line and saved was cautioned as well as facing a retake. The 2020/21 edition softened that: the goalkeeper is warned for the first offence in the game and cautioned for any after it.

The outcome of the kick decides whether the offence matters at all. If the ball goes in, the goal stands. If the goalkeeper saves, the kick is retaken. If the ball misses the goal or comes back off the woodwork without the goalkeeper touching it, the kick is retaken only if the goalkeeper's offence clearly affected the kicker. A goalkeeper two yards off the line is not penalised for a penalty that sails a yard over the bar.

Penalty encroachment since the impact test

Watch any penalty at any English ground and count the players inside the area or the arc when the ball is struck. There are usually several. For decades the Law said every one of them had offended and referees, sensibly, ignored most of it.

The current text has been brought into line with practice. In the 2026/27 edition, encroachment by an outfield player is penalised only if it had an impact, and the Law defines impact separately for each side.

A team-mate of the kicker who encroaches is penalised only if:

• the encroachment clearly affected the goalkeeper; or
• the encroaching player plays the ball, or challenges an opponent for it, and then scores, attempts to score or creates a goal-scoring opportunity.

A team-mate of the goalkeeper who encroaches is penalised only if:

• the encroachment clearly affected the kicker; or
• the encroaching player plays the ball, or challenges an opponent for it, and this prevents the opponents from scoring, attempting to score or creating a goal-scoring opportunity.

The second limb is the one that matters in practice, and it is all about rebounds. A penalty that goes straight in or straight out is finished before any early runner can touch the ball, so his position was irrelevant. When the goalkeeper parries or the ball comes back off a post, the player who set off early has a head start on everyone who waited. If he is the one who reaches the ball, his encroachment has paid off, and the Law takes the profit away.

So a defender who steps into the area a yard early and clears a rebound has prevented a follow-up chance: retake. An attacker who does the same and taps in: no goal. Three other players who also stepped in early and got nowhere near the ball have, for the Law's purposes, done nothing.

The first limb, clearly affecting the goalkeeper or the kicker, is rare. It would cover a player running across the kicker's path during the run-up, or one who arrives so early that he is beside the ball as it is struck.

A fair criticism of the impact test is that it removes any reason not to encroach. A player who goes early loses nothing if the ball does not come to him and risks only a retake or a free kick if it does. The answer implicit in the change is that the old text was not being applied anyway, and a rule that is enforced when it matters is better than one that is never enforced.

When a penalty is retaken: the full table

Law 14 prints a summary table of its own. This version follows the 2026/27 text.

Who offended	Ball goes in	Ball does not go in
Goalkeeper	Goal	Retake if saved; if missed or off the woodwork, retake only if the kicker was clearly affected
Defending outfield player, with impact	Goal	Retake
Attacking outfield player, with impact	Retake	Indirect free kick to the defence
Players of both teams	Retake	Retake
Kicker feints after the run-up	Indirect free kick and caution	Indirect free kick and caution
Wrong player takes the kick	Indirect free kick and caution	Indirect free kick and caution
Ball kicked backwards	Indirect free kick	Indirect free kick
Kicker's accidental double touch at the strike	Retake	Indirect free kick
Goalkeeper and kicker offend together	Retake, unless the kicker's offence is one of the three above	Retake, unless the kicker's offence is one of the three above

A single principle sorts most of the rows. The side that offended is never allowed to keep an outcome that suited it, and the side that did not offend is never deprived of one that suited it. An offence by the defence when a goal is scored changes nothing. An offence by the attack when the kick is missed changes nothing for the attack either: it loses the ball as well.

The rows that break that pattern are those where the kicker himself did something the Law regards as improper. A feint, a kick by the wrong player and a backwards kick are all punished with an indirect free kick whatever happened to the ball, because the kick was never a valid one.

1. 1Was the kick itself validA feint after the run-up, a backwards kick or a kick by an unidentified player ends the matter with an indirect free kick.
2. 2Did anyone else offendIf nobody encroached and the goalkeeper kept to the line, the result stands.
3. 3Did the offence have an impactEncroachment by an outfield player counts only if it affected the kicker or goalkeeper, or the player got involved with the rebound.
4. 4Which side offendedOnly the defence, only the attack, or both.
5. 5Where did the ball goAn offending side cannot keep a result that favoured it. The other side keeps a result that favoured it.
6. 6RestartGoal, retake, or indirect free kick, with a warning or caution for the goalkeeper where the Law requires one.

A reading order for the summary table in Law 14 of the 2026/27 Laws of the Game. Indirect free kicks are taken by the defending side.

The last row of the table changed for 2026/27. Until then, when the goalkeeper and the kicker offended at the same moment, the kicker was automatically cautioned and the defence got an indirect free kick. That automatic caution has been removed, and the kick is now retaken unless the kicker's offence is one of the serious ones. If the goalkeeper leaves the line early and the kicker feints illegally in the same instant, the feint still counts: indirect free kick and a caution, because an illegal feint is what draws a goalkeeper off the line in the first place. How that restart works is set out in our guide to indirect free kick rules.

The double touch: rebounds, slips and what the clarified Law now orders

Start with the simple version. Once the ball is in play, the kicker must not touch it again until it has touched another player. A penalty that hits the post and comes straight back cannot be played by the kicker, because the post is not a player. A penalty that the goalkeeper pushes out can be, and the follow-up is a goal like any other.

If the kicker does play a rebound off the frame, the restart is an indirect free kick to the defending team, or a direct free kick if the second touch was a handball.

The slip

The awkward case is the one Mitrović produced at Newcastle and Riyad Mahrez had produced for Leicester City at Manchester City in May 2017. The kicker's standing foot goes from under him as he strikes the ball, and the ball cannons off that foot or leg on its way to goal. Two touches, a fraction of a second apart, with no intent at all.

Until 2025 this was treated as a second touch like any other. Goal disallowed, indirect free kick. Both of those English examples were ruled that way and both rulings were correct on the text as it stood.

The matter came to a head on 12 March 2025, in a Champions League shoot-out between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid. Julián Álvarez slipped, scored, and had the kick ruled out after a video review found the faintest contact with his standing foot. UEFA asked the lawmakers to look at it.

The Board's clarification, issued later in 2025 as its circular no. 31 and written into the 2026/27 edition, separates the accidental double touch from the deliberate one. Where the kicker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet at once, or the ball touches the non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick:

• if the ball goes into the goal, the kick is retaken;
• if the ball does not go into the goal, an indirect free kick is awarded to the defending team, or in a shoot-out the kick is recorded as missed.

The logic is that a slip is a disadvantage to the kicker and is not an attempt to gain anything. A double contact changes the flight of the ball in a way the goalkeeper cannot read, so the goal cannot stand, but taking the kick away entirely was thought too harsh for an accident.

A deliberate second touch, the kicker chasing down his own rebound off the post, remains an offence with no retake.

The passed penalty: legal, rare, and how Highbury got it wrong

Nothing in Law 14 says a penalty has to be a shot. The ball must go forward. The kicker may not touch it twice in succession. Everybody else must be outside the area and the arc, and behind the ball, until it is kicked. Satisfy those three conditions and a penalty can be a pass.

The best-known example was scored by Ajax against Helmond Sport on 5 December 1982. Johan Cruyff rolled the ball a few yards sideways and forward. Jesper Olsen, who had started his run from outside the area, collected it and drew the goalkeeper before squaring it back to Cruyff, who tapped into an empty net. It was not the first: the Belgian forwards Rik Coppens and André Piters had done much the same against Iceland in 1957. Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez repeated it for Barcelona against Celta Vigo in February 2016.

Why it works is a matter of geometry. The goalkeeper may not leave the line until the ball is kicked, and expects a shot. A team-mate starting from the edge of the arc, ten yards back, reaches a ball rolled gently forward at about the same moment as the goalkeeper can, and arrives with a two-against-one.

Why it is rare is that defenders can run as well. The moment the ball is kicked, every player may enter the area. A slow pass, a heavy touch or a hesitant run, and the nearest defender clears.

Pires and Henry, 22 October 2005

Arsenal were leading Manchester City 1-0 at Highbury, through a penalty Robert Pires had already scored in the conventional way, when they were awarded a second. Pires and Thierry Henry had planned the Cruyff routine. Pires ran up and went to roll the ball sideways and forward for Henry, but his foot barely brushed the top of it. The ball scarcely moved. Henry, arriving, had nothing to run on to, Pires hovered over it, and the referee, Mike Riley, stopped play and gave City a free kick.

The usual account is that Riley penalised Pires for a second touch. The episode shows the two ways the routine can fail in Law. If the ball is kicked and clearly moves, it is in play, and the kicker cannot touch it again before someone else does. If it does not clearly move, it is not in play at all, and the kick has not been taken. Pires managed to leave everyone unsure which had happened. Arsenal won anyway.

The trick also needs the receiving player to hold his run. A team-mate who is inside the arc when the ball is kicked and then plays it has encroached with impact, in the plainest possible way.

A penalty at the end of a half

The Laws make one exception to the referee's power to end a half when time is up. Additional time is allowed for a penalty kick to be taken and completed, at the end of either half or of a period of extra time.

This creates a kick with different rules of completion. In open play a penalty is followed by whatever happens next. When time has been extended only for the kick, the Law has to say exactly when the kick is over, and it does: the penalty is completed when, after it has been taken, the ball stops moving, goes out of play, is played by any player other than the defending goalkeeper, or the referee stops play for an offence by the kicker or the kicker's team.

Read that list for what it leaves out. A touch by the goalkeeper does not complete the kick. So if the goalkeeper pushes the ball on to the post and it rolls in, or it hits the bar, bounces down on to the goalkeeper's back and crosses the line, the goal counts. The kick is still alive for as long as the ball is moving and only the goalkeeper has touched it.

A touch by anyone else ends it. That includes the kicker. There is no rebound to play for: if the goalkeeper saves and the kicker reaches the loose ball first, his touch completes the kick and the half is over before he can shoot. Team-mates gathering on the edge of the area are wasting their energy, and so are defenders.

Referees are expected to make the situation clear before the kick, usually by telling both captains or signalling that time is up and the penalty alone remains.

Which offences produce a penalty

A penalty kick is awarded when a player commits a direct free-kick offence inside his own penalty area, or off the field as part of play. Three points in that sentence are regularly misunderstood.

The offence, not the ball. What matters is where the offence took place. If a defender punches an opponent in the penalty area when the ball is in play at the other end of the pitch, it is a penalty. The ball has only to be in play.

The lines belong to the area. Law 1 says the lines are part of the areas they mark. A foul on the 18-yard line is in the area. A trip that makes contact with a foot on the line is a penalty, and the question for the referee, and for a VAR checking a matter of fact, is where the contact occurred.

Holding that continues. If a defender starts holding an attacker outside the area and is still holding him inside it, Law 12 says the referee must award a penalty. The offence is treated as occurring where it ends, which is the more serious place.

The direct free-kick offences themselves are those in Law 12: the careless, reckless or forceful challenges covered in our guide to what makes a tackle a foul, together with holding, impeding with contact, handball by anyone other than the goalkeeper in his own area, biting, spitting, and throwing an object at the ball or a person. An indirect free-kick offence in the area, a goalkeeper handling a deliberate pass from a team-mate, for instance, is never a penalty.

Less familiar routes exist. A substitute or team official who enters the field and interferes with play inside his own team's penalty area gives away a penalty. A physical offence by a defender against a team-mate or a match official inside the area with the ball in play does the same.

The card that accompanies a penalty is a separate decision. Since 2016 a defender who denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity with a genuine attempt to play the ball, and concedes a penalty, is cautioned and not sent off, on the reasoning that the penalty restores the chance. And a referee who sees a foul in the area with the ball already rolling into the net will let it roll, as our page on playing advantage explains.

How VAR polices the kick itself

The decision to award a penalty is reviewable. So, separately, is the taking of it. The protocol lists among reviewable incidents an offence by the goalkeeper or the kicker at the taking of a penalty kick, and encroachment by an attacker or defender who becomes directly involved in play if the kick rebounds from the goalpost, the crossbar or the goalkeeper.

That list matches the Law's own priorities. It does not ask the VAR to count heads inside the arc. It asks three questions, each of which is close to a matter of fact.

Was the goalkeeper on the line? A camera level with the goal line shows whether part of one foot was touching, above or behind it at the instant of contact. This is why saved penalties get the closest look. A goal means the goalkeeper's position is irrelevant. A miss means it matters only if the kicker was clearly affected. A save means it decides everything, and every saved penalty in a competition using VAR is checked for it.

Did an early runner get involved? Only if there was a rebound and only if the player who reached it had encroached.

Did the kicker touch the ball twice? Until 2025 this was rarely a matter for video review. The Álvarez case showed that broadcast cameras can now detect contact that no referee could see from twelve yards, and the clarified Law was written partly because the technology had made a previously invisible offence visible.

The timing was awkward for English football. VAR came into the Premier League in 2019-20, the same season the one-foot wording arrived, and the 2019 Women's World Cup that summer had already shown how many retakes and goalkeeper cautions strict video checks of the line could produce. The change to a warning for a first offence followed for 2020/21. The wider system is described in our guide to VAR in the Premier League.

One limit is worth stating. The VAR does not re-referee the run-up. Whether a stutter was a legal hesitation or an illegal feint is a judgement for the referee, reviewable only as a clear and obvious error, and reviews for feinting are uncommon.

How a penalty in the match differs from a kick in a shoot-out

Kicks from the penalty mark to decide a drawn tie are governed by Law 10, not Law 14. They borrow the penalty's procedure and change its consequences. The competitions in England that use them, and the extra time that comes first, are covered in our guide to extra time and penalties in English cup ties.

Point	Penalty during the match	Kick in a shoot-out
Governing Law	Law 14	Law 10
Who may take it	Any player of the team, once identified	Only players on the field at the final whistle, each once before anyone goes twice
Rebound from the goalkeeper	Live; kicker or team-mates may score	Dead; the kicker may not play the ball again
When it ends	Play simply continues	When the ball stops, goes out of play or the referee stops play
Other players	Outside the area and arc, behind the ball	In the centre circle
Goalkeeper offends and saves	Retake; warning, then caution	Retake; warning, then caution
Kicker offends	Retake if scored, indirect free kick if not; always an indirect free kick for a feint, backwards kick or wrong kicker	Kick recorded as missed, kicker cautioned
Accidental double touch, no goal	Indirect free kick	Kick recorded as missed

The largest difference is the rebound. In a match the penalty is the start of a passage of play. In a shoot-out each kick is a sealed event: one strike, and the ball either ends up in the goal or it does not. It may still go in off the goalkeeper, the post and the goalkeeper again, as long as it keeps moving, but nobody may help it.

Eligibility is the second. A substitute who was on the bench when extra time ended cannot take a kick, with the single exception of a replacement for a goalkeeper who is unable to continue. If one team finishes with fewer players, through a red card or an injury, the other must reduce its number to match, so that the short-handed side does not get its best taker round again when the other is still on its eleventh.

The third is discipline. Cautions from the match are not carried into the shoot-out, so a player booked in the ninetieth minute who commits a cautionable offence during the kicks is not sent off for a second yellow. England's own experience of the format, which is long and mostly unhappy, is told in our history of England in penalty shoot-outs.

Where the penalty came from: McCrum, 1891, and the markings that followed

The penalty kick was an Irish idea, adopted in Scotland, and resisted in England. William McCrum, a goalkeeper for Milford in County Armagh and the son of a linen-mill owner, proposed it through the Irish Football Association in 1890. The problem he wanted to solve was the defender who would deliberately handle or trip close to goal, knowing that the only punishment was a free kick which could be blocked by a wall of bodies on the line.

The proposal was not welcomed. A penalty for a deliberate foul implied that gentlemen committed deliberate fouls, and amateur opinion in England, the Corinthians above all, found the suggestion insulting. Members of that club are said to have refused to try to score penalties, or to save them, for years afterwards.

Events moved the argument. In an FA Cup quarter-final in February 1891, a Notts County defender punched a shot off the line against Stoke, the resulting free kick on the goal line came to nothing, and County won by a single goal. On 2 June 1891 the International Football Association Board, meeting in Glasgow, approved the new law.

The kick of 1891 would be hard to recognise. There was no spot and no penalty area. The kick could be taken from any point on a line 12 yards from the goal line, the goalkeeper could advance up to six yards, and the other players had to stand six yards behind the ball. The first in the Football League was scored by John Heath for Wolverhampton Wanderers against Accrington at Molineux on 14 September 1891.

Year	Change
1891	Penalty kick introduced; taken from anywhere on a 12-yard line, goalkeeper may advance six yards
1902	Penalty area and penalty spot marked in their modern form
1905	Goalkeeper required to remain on the goal line
1937	Arc added to the edge of the penalty area
1997	Goalkeeper permitted to move sideways along the line
2019	One foot on or in line with the goal line is enough
2026	Accidental double touch: retake if scored; no automatic caution when kicker and goalkeeper offend together

• 1891Penalty kick approved
• 1902Spot and area marked
• 1937Arc added
• 1997Sideways movement allowed

Years in which the International Football Association Board made the changes described in the table above.

The arc did not arrive until 46 years after the kick itself, and the goalkeeper waited more than a century to be allowed to move along his own line. Law 14 has always changed slowly, and usually after an incident that made the existing text look foolish.

Most of the later changes have run in the goalkeeper's favour: sideways movement, one foot in place of two, a warning before a card. The 1891 goalkeeper, charging six yards off his line at a kicker with no arc of clear space behind him, would regard the modern one as badly treated all the same. More on the sport is in the football section, and the other English guides are listed on the England hub.