The FA have announced a new penalty format for the Community Shield match between Arsenal and Chelsea on Sunday, should the game be tied after 90 minutes.

Rather than go to extra time, the FA have announced a new penalty format to potentially be debuted during the Community Shield match against Chelsea and Arsenal if the game is still tied after 90 minutes.

The new format will then be used across English football next season.

“The FA has today announced that a different order of kicks for Kicks from the Penalty Mark (KFPM) will be trialled at Sunday’s FA Community Shield supported by McDonald’s – the first time the new format will be used competitively in the country,” the FA said in a statement, reports the Daily Mail.

The new format, which is used in tennis tie-breaks, is supposed to be fairer on the second team taking the penalty. Instead of seeing alternating kicks from the spot, i.e. AB AB AB, it’ll see each team take it in turns to go first: AB BA AB etc.

For example, instead of an Arsenal player taking a spot-kick followed by Chelsea and then Arsenal again, an Arsenal player would take it, followed by a Chelsea player, and then another Chelsea player before swapping back to a Gunner.

This obviously means that both teams get a chance to take their penalty ‘first’, giving them an equal chance.

This format was used at the u17 Euros in Croatia, which took place in May this year.

While some may think this is a pretty useless step to take in making games ‘fairer’ and perhaps the FA should be working towards making sure their referees can actually make simple calls adequately first (and they should), the New York Times recently pointed out how studies how shown that the first team to take a penalty has a 60% chance of winning.

This is all apparently down to psychology. As penalties are often scored, this gives the first team taking theirs a goal advantage right off the bat.

It makes senses. Plus, Arsenal need all the help they can get in penalty shoot-outs.