FIFA Might Replace The Penalty Shootout With A Failed Nineties Experiment
Retro run-ups could be making a comeback
Having already ruffled the delicate feathers of football fans recently by expanding the World Cup to 48 teams - that and whole rampant, shameless corruption thing - FIFA and its meddling ways are back again to, potentially, rid the world of the penalty shootout.
Marco Van Basten, the former Dutch legend who is now FIFA's Chief Officer for Technical Development, revealed in an interview with Sport Bild that a potential shakeup to the game's rules include abolishing standard penalty kicks after a draw, and replacing them with a run-up shootout.
You might remember this being a thing in America back in the nineties, when the MLS allowed players to run with the ball and try and take on the goalkeeper however they saw fit. It didn't really catch on anywhere else, so of course it makes perfect sense for FIFA to implement it at the highest level of the game.
According to Sport Bild, some of the other changes that FIFA is considering include: 'sin bins' instead of yellow cards; increasing the number of substitutions from three; substitutions on the fly, instead of during stoppages; a maximum number of fouls allowed per player; abolishing the offside rule; and making teams actively play during the last 10 minutes of a game–the ball would not be able to be stationary for more than 10 seconds–to avoid time-wasting.
No more Thierry Henry camped out at the corner flag for four minutes of stoppage time? Unthinkable, Marco!
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