Blatter eyes alternative to penalty shootouts
Reuters - Friday 25 May 2012, 09:18
FIFA President Sepp Blatter has
called on Germany's World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer and his
panel of football experts to try to come up with an alternative to
penalty shootouts to settle drawn matches.
Blatter was speaking to delegates at the FIFA Congress on
Friday less than a week after Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on
penalties to win the Champions League final.
"Football can be a tragedy when you go to penalty kicks.
Football is a team game, when it goes to one against one
football loses its essence," Blatter said.
"Perhaps Franz Beckenbauer, with his Football 2014 group,
can show us a solution, perhaps not today but in the future."
Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup with Germany as both a
player and manager was among the delegates at the congress, was
not immediately available for comment but his views are well
known on the matter.
The German has said he would rather have penalties than
either a golden or silver goal which were used briefly to
determine matches.
Blatter has been calling for reforms to the game for a while
and this is not the first time he has said he wanted to see
penalty shootouts replaced.
But the fact he made the comment in his speech to delegates
underlines his desire for the Football Committee to take some
action on the issue.
Dozens of high profile finals, including the 1994 and 2006
World Cup finals, European Championships and Champions League
finals have all been decided on penalties since they were
introduced in their modern format in 1970.