Juvenile Football League: Penalty shoot-out to decide games that end in draw

The Ghana Football Association has introduced a penalty shootout to decide the winner in the novel Juvenile Football League which is set to kick off on May 7, 2021.

This will be played in games that end in a draw GFA president Kurt Okraku revealed during the launch of the new competition which was held at the GFA Secretariat on Wednesday.

Kurt Okraku explained that the new format is to help young footballer perfect their skills in the area of penalty shoot-outs.

The Black Star's quest to win an Afcon title in recent years has been hindered by penalty shootouts especially in Senegal 1992 and Equatorial Guinea in 2015.

Other national teams have also failed to progress or clinch titles as a result of the failure during the penalty shootouts.

The GFA president believes with the introduction of this new format these young players will be able to learn the skills from this stage until they get to the big stage.

“For so many years, Ghana has suffered a lot from our inability to score at the penalty spot when games end in stalemates. The Black Stars we remember Senegal 92 (which is) just one of the key examples,” he said at the launch.

“So beginning this season, all juvenile games that end in stalemates will be decided via penalty shootouts. So what that means is that when the game ends in 0-0, 1-1, or 3-3 we’ll resort to the penalty shootout to decide the winner.

“The winner gets 2 points while the losing team one,” he concluded.

The Juvenile League is set to start on the weekend of May 7/8/9, 2021.