I've had an idea for a few years now, even before VAR, that sounds drastic and is, but makes sense to me. Do away with penalties altogether apart from incidents in the 6 yard box. Within that space, a foul or handball is almost certainly preventing a goal scoring opportunity (or at least give the ref the leeway to determine if it is or not) Being awarded a clean shot at goal for a foul on the far corner of the 18 yard box makes no sense. It incentivizes players to look to go down at any contact rather than try to score. Look at Leicester's penalties today. Yes, all could be argued as legitimate fouls, but they could also be argued as players going down very easily to win the peno too. Vardy is a master of this type of ####e unfortunately.
Instead, anything outside the 6 yard box should be a free kick, indirect or not. Faced with a chance against a wall of 10 men at close range you'd imagine a player would prefer to try to score openly instead.
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