By John Taylor                     

A few weeks ago, I was e-mailed by some outfit on behalf of the Football League and invited to participate in their supporter survey, which asked loads of questions on attendance patterns and views on things such as pre-match entertainment, pricing policies, refereeing, finance, agents, the biggest issues facing the game and so on. Some time after that, we had an announcement in the media of the Football League Management chairmen and executives discussing the possibility of the introduction of a penalty shoot-out or something at the end of drawn games in the league to decide a winner. Now this was floated in the survey and I thought it one of those daft things to vote strongly against, so I did, but something must have triggered the Football League's management to discuss the thing, but I can't imagine that it was loads of "yes please" answers in the survey.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot wrong with the game and the authorities need to look at things seriously, but tinkering with something as fundamental as that is decidedly worrying. I know that the Americans don't like draws and they did some shoot-out thing to decide drawn games, but the rest of the world seems to appreciate an honourable hard-fought stalemate, even if it's 0-0. There's a great deal of satisfaction to be had in going away from home and coming back with a point after withstanding a home team onslaught and to take that away would be yet another erosion of one of the great things about the game. Surely even the modern youngster is not so shallow that he or she requires each game to be either won or lost and if not it's boring-I can't believe it. It was very reassuring to hear Arsene Wenger, not my favourite chap in football, speak out strongly against this idiotic proposal. He has even experienced it whilst working in Japan and said, "It did not have spectacular results".

One of the arguments for this was potential increase in excitement and the possibilities for enhanced interest from sponsors in this. Personally, I've found the traditional game exciting enough without some artificial, soulless americanised notion of how sport should be played. It isn't right-our culture and traditions count for something as well and you don't throw away over 100 years worth of tradition just because the game is experiencing some difficulties. Can you imagine it after a 1-1 draw? "Well here we are folks-it's that penalty shoot-out time here at the Dema Glass Stadium brought to you courtesy of Smith's Super Car Wash" No thanks-if that happens, I think it would be the final straw for me, but then I'm probably not in the mainstream target market any more.

If the powers-that-be are worried about a decline in popularity, they should look elsewhere to give the game a boost. The biggest issues in football at the moment seem to be in the areas of honesty, especially on the pitch. Stop the diving and feigning injury by actually punishing the culprits for it. The referees know it's happening and they need the authorities to back them up in ridding the game of this malaise. This cheating is a very destructive force and has started at the top and is gradually seeping lower towards the foundations of the sport. Also, why not make agents in football like other walks of life; their being paid by their clients, the players, not by the clubs. If they want to tinker with the points business in games, why not go the whole hog and revert to 2 points for a win? Draws would be even more important then. That won't happen, of course, and it is now a long-established part of the game having 3 points for a win-introduced in 1981. I'm not convinced, however, that the arguments about its encouraging attacking football have actually been borne out by results.

Seriously though, some years ago in the US, their national sport, baseball, was going through tough times with dwindling interest and the country very cynical about the whole game with players accused of greed and not caring, especially after a very damaging strike. After much consultation with fans and all interested parties within the game, they decided on a back-to-basics kind of deal with an emphasis on the game's traditions and values. They even reverted to players wearing more traditional style outfits (or uniforms as they call them) on the pitch and a gradual return to grass from Astroturf. It worked and even the players, though still remarkably well remunerated, appear to have got the message and the game has steadily recovered its popularity and standing.

If there is one thing overall that the authorities could do to improve attendances, it would be to encourage reductions of admission prices, since the price of entry to football has gone up massively ahead of RPI since the eighties.  To do that, however, there needs to be a drop in outgoings and since most of the outflow is to players and agents, there's a big job to do to stem that raging tide which has risen by phenomenal proportions since the advent of the Premier League. It won't happen, though, so here's to the next daft idea. Maybe we could make the goals bigger or have the goalkeepers dressed as clowns, but then perhaps we're already part way down that road now.