In
association football, an own goal occurs when a player causes the ball to go into his or her own team's
goal, resulting in a goal being scored for the opposition.
The fact that the defending player touches the ball last does not automatically mean that the goal is recorded as an own goal. Only if the ball would not have gone in the net but for the defending player would an own goal be credited. Thus a shot which is already "on target" would not be an own goal even if deflected by the defender. Then the attacker is awarded the goal, even if the shot would have otherwise been easily saved by the
goalkeeper. Some scorers will give credit to the attacker if the defender's mistake caused the own goal, similar to ice hockey. The
Laws of the Game do not stipulate any rules or procedures for to which players goals are credited, indeed such records are not a compulsory part of the game.
The defending player who scored the own goal is personally "credited" with the goal as part of the statistical abstract of the game. The credit is annotated "(og)" to indicate its nature.
The Laws stipulate that an own goal cannot be scored directly (i.e. without any other player touching the ball) from a
throw-in, free kick (
direct or
indirect),
corner kick or
goal kick. Should the any of these situations occur, a
corner kick is instead awarded to the attacking team.
Since football is a world game, the term "own goal" is widely known around the world.