Australian football has been revealed as an outlier from the most popular competitions around the globe after a rule change that could decide which clubs win the A-Leagues premierships. The A-Leagues will from this season turn to total wins to rank the placings on the men’s and women’s tables when teams are level on points. Most competitions around the world, including the English Premier League and the group stage of Fifa World Cups, first use goal difference to split teams level on points. The A-Leagues will instead rank teams on goal difference only where they are level on points and total wins. Serie A in Brazil and Major League Soccer in the US are among other competitions to follow the A-Leagues’ new approach to tiebreakers. The rule change was revealed to most on Monday through a series of fans’ social media posts, although the A-Leagues appear to have updated the rules on their own website in the days around the start of the men’s competition on 20 October. The men’s table on the A-Leagues website showed Melbourne Victory sitting in top spot on Monday, until an update later that day saw the leaders swap places with Wellington Phoenix in second. “So the league fundamentally altered the way that ladder positioning is determined – going against the global norm in doing so – and seemingly told absolutely nobody, let alone provided an explanation,” the freelance journalist Joey Lynch posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday. “We were unaware too. Unbelievable. Anyway, belated congrats to Wellington Phoenix – it appears you were top going into 2024!” the football commentator Simon Hill said in a reply on X. The rule change has shaken up the A-League Men’s table with the Phoenix now holding top spot with 20 points from six wins and two draws, while having a goal difference of +6. The Victory would sit in first place after 10 rounds under the old rules with 20 points and a goal difference of +10, but currently have one fewer win than the Phoenix. The Victory have secured five draws as well as five wins in an undefeated start to the season. A-League teams continue to earn three points for a win and one point for a draw, as is typical in football competitions around the world. Sydney FC and Newcastle have also switched places lower down the table in ninth and 10th, despite the Jets having the superior goal difference. The A-League Women started on 14 October when information on the A-Leagues website appears to have still referred to the rules for the 2022-23 season. The Australian Professional Leagues [APL] released a statement on Tuesday that shed more light on the reasons behind the rule change. “In the off-season, the APL increased its ladder sorting rules from a 5 step to an 11 step criteria to reduce the chance of clubs being tied at the end of the regular season,” the APL statement said. “The A-Leagues regulations are reviewed annually to make sure we put the most compelling product on the pitch. We consult with stakeholders and look at similarly constructed leagues around the world before making decisions. “Communicated to clubs before the start of the season, the new criteria places a greater emphasis on a club’s total number of wins to encourage more attacking football and to increase the number of matches that matter through the season.” The shock rule change comes a year after the APL faced a backlash over a deal with the New South Wales government that would have seen Sydney host the A-League men’s and women’s grand finals for three seasons starting with the 2022-23 deciders. Both grand finals were held in Sydney at the end of last season but the decision has since been reversed and the top-ranked team will again host the grand final. The A-League Men already sets itself apart with a 26-round regular season that means that each of the 12 clubs play four clubs three times, while facing the other seven clubs twice. Like most leagues around the world, the A-Leagues award a title – known in Australia as the “premiership” – to the clubs that finish at the top of the table at the end of the regular season. But Australia’s top-tier men’s and women’s competitions then each play a finals series to decide which club wins the prestigious “championship”.