Procedures for determining, when necessary, the winner of a "drawn" match, in which each team has scored the same number of goals after 90 minutes.
The current name and content of Law 10 date from 2016. From 1938 until 2016, Law 10 was titled "Method of Scoring", and addressed only the procedure for scoring a goal. Procedures for breaking ties were addressed, if at all, in a supplemental section of the laws.
Scoring a goal
Determining the winner of a drawn match
In most games, a draw is an allowable outcome. League competitions using the common three points for a win system award a single point to both teams for a drawn match. However in some competitions, such as in knock-out tournaments, it is necessary to resolve a victor. Some competitions employ replays, otherwise there are three procedures permitted by Law 10 to determine the winner of a drawn match:
Normally these are applied in the order listed above — i.e. for a two legged match, extra time is played if the away goals rule does not determine a victor. After extra time, if the score is still level, a penalty shoot-out takes place. In a few cup competitions extra time is ignored completely and the game goes directly to penalties. Most of the time this applies to the whole tournament and as is decided before the tournament begins, but on rare occasions can be decided for individual games before kick off. Examples of where this happens include the EFL Cup and County Cups.
History
Before 1863
Most codes of football from before 1863 provided only one means of scoring. The two major exceptions both used the "rouge" as a tie-breaker.
The 1863 FA laws
The 1863 laws of the game provided for only one means of scoring: the goal. There was no procedure to break ties.
The "touch down"
In February 1866, association football briefly adopted a tie-breaker known as the "touch down". This "touch down" had similarities to the "rouge" used in the Eton field game and Sheffield rules, and also to the try in today's rugby codes. It was defined thus: An example of a game being decided by "touches down" is Barnes FC v. Civil Service FC, played on Saturday December 8th, 1866. The match "resulted in a victory for the Civil Service by three touches down to none, no goal being obtained by either side". In the historic London v. Sheffield match played on March 31st 1866, "London" won by two goals and four touches down to nil. The "touch down" lasted only one year. It was abolished in February 1867, on the basis of a proposal by Wanderers FC. FA Secretary Robert Graham later explained the benefit of its removal, writing that "the whole play is now directed to obtaining a goal, whereas formerly this chief object in the game was frequently lost sight of in the efforts to obtain a 'touch down'".
Explicit statement that the goal is the only means of scoring
In 1923, the following statement was added to the Laws of the Game: This change was made in order to prevent the use of the corner-kick as a tie-breaker.
The golden goal, originally known as "sudden death", was a procedure introduced experimentally in 1993, by which the first team to score during extra-time was declared to be the winner. The golden goal was used at the 1998 and 2002 World Cup tournaments, before being abolished in 2004. During the latter part of this period, a variant known as the "silver goal" was also used.
