Football League chairman Lord Brian Mawhinney brainfarted a new proposal that would see all drawn matches in professional league games outside the Premiership go to a shoot-out.
Mawhinney said: “I suggested that for drawn matches each team gets a point and then maybe the team that wins a penalty shoot-out gets an extra point.
“Managers may hate shoot-outs but fans love them. The chairmen decided to use this proposal to have a broader look at a range of ideas that might refresh our product.
“Some people were strongly against it, some people were in favour of it but on both sides people said `let’s be constructive and have a broad examination of what we have on offer’.”
The league’s working party will now seek other ideas from clubs and fans but will be limited by the rules of the game – for example they would not be permitted to abandon the offside rule.
Mawhinney said it was important to constantly seek to improve the entertainment on offer.
He added: “We cannot afford to be complacent – people are always talking to be about how we can get more goals and more excitement in football.
“I understand that it is not instinctively where clubs would go but if you don’t change in a changing world then you can fall behind.”
There are currently two proposals to be considered – a traditional penalty shoot-out, and giving a player eight seconds to try and score after receiving the ball on the half-way line, as was tried and scrapped by Major League Soccer in the US. If even the MLS tried an idea and decided it was dumb, then it probably isn’t a winner.
Bournemouth boss Kevin Bond told the Daily Echo newspaper:
‘Why can’t we just have a draw?’
‘I don’t agree with it because I think it’s too much of a radical change.
‘I’m very open-minded and I think certain laws of the game need to move with the times but that would be too much of a drastic measure.’
Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock was also less than enthusiastic.
‘They have probably got little else to discuss on the agenda if that is the main directive,’ he said. ‘Personally I detest penalty shoot-outs. I don’t see anything wrong with the Championship.
‘If they want to titivate and mess about they should try to get to FIFA and get the divers and the people who are injured treated while the game is in progress to get the game moving quicker.
‘If we are going to go Americanised we are going to have all these girls waving things every time there is a goal,’ he added.
‘You ask them to run up and down in Sheffield with very little clothing on – it would be hard work for them.’