A Good Idea Son

HAS Sepp Blatter, or Sepp Bladder, fitba's biggest tube as some Tartan Army irregulars call him, been rifling through the trash bin on my lap top?

I ask this, because doing away with draws has long been a bee in my bonnet, and much abuse I have taken for holding it in late-night brainstorming sessions with fellow members of football's intelligentsia.

And why not, in American sport, by far the most-professional arenas in the world, they simply don't get draws (like kissing your sister, they say). Well kissing your sister might make sense in certain parts of Fife, Ayrshire, north of the Highland Line and in the Borders, but is anathema to the great majority of us.

So why, because it was acceptable in the English public school sporting tradition, of fair play and not excelling, the rest of the world has to put up with it, has long been beyond me.

Herr Blatter is proposing abolishing draws in the group games in the World Cup - why stop there? Abolish it altogether.

Would you not rather see your team going flat-out for goals but losing 5-4, than getting all ten outfield players behind the ball and trying to hold out for 90 minutes for a 0-0 draw?

Football is supposed to be part of the entertainment business - so let's entertain by going for goals and deil tak the hindmost.

Bonus points work in other sports. In rugby you can lose a match, but still take two points from it: score more than three tries, you get one bonus point - lose by less than two scores and you get another. Let's try it in football, then, if you lost 5-4, you'd get two points, for the more than three goals and the one-goal deficit.

Since we'd be doing away with draws, we could adapt the game time and its consequences.

One-one at 90 minutes: both sides get a point.

Ten minutes of extra time to produce a silver goal - if it happens, the winning team gets an additional two points, the losing side gets an extra point for the one-goal final deficit.

No more goals, or the teams still level, go to a second ten minutes, to produce a golden goal, with the added points accruing as for the silver goal.

Still no result, we go to penalties to produce a winner; losing team still gets two points, winner three.

Playing for bonus points would positively discriminate in favour of all-out attacking football and mitigate against the present-day "don't lose" attitude. It would probably bring many of the absent fans back.

I commend the idea to the house.