Blatter calls for alternative to penalty shootouts

BUDAPEST: FIFA President Sepp Blatter has called on Germany’s World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer and his panel of soccer 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 yesterday 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.
Meanwhile, English FA chairman David Bernstein, who called for last year’s FIFA presidential election to be called off in the wake of a bribery scandal, said he was very impressed with the changes underway within world soccer’s governing body.
Since last year’s near-meltdown when FIFA was besmirched by one scandal after another, President Sepp Blatter has instigated a number of far-reaching reforms with some adopted at Congress and the rest due to be implemented at next year’s gathering in Mauritius.
Bernstein told last year’s Congress in Zurich that the election should be halted, provoking a torrent of angry comments from senior FIFA executives and delegates, but his mood was markedly different at the end of this year’s event in Budapest.
“I was very impressed today. A range of very responsible people and serious people are now on board and it is obvious that President Blatter, the executive committee and the organization are taking this very seriously,” he told reporters.
“I think the FA should take a little of the credit for helping to push this a year ago - we probably injected a little urgency into the situation.
“There is still much work to be done, but I think it was all so traumatic for FIFA last year and previously, but they have now seen the light and that is what is coming through.
“I think today is a moment in time where there is real evidence of change and we want this to continue to next year’s Congress.” Almost every one of FIFA’s institutions is being examined including the important law-making body, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which was formed by the British associations in 1886 - 18 years before FIFA started and has involved the four British associations and FIFA for over 100 years.
Bernstein accepted that even that body could change and that the automatic British vice-presidency on the executive committee is also likely to disappear. But he is happy for the changes to take place, especially if the home nations still play a key role in IFAB.
FROM: AGENCIES