Dear WSC
What with Scotland outplaying England over two legs in the recent Euro 2000 play-off and Sunderland returning with nothing after playing Liverpool off the park a few days later, I have come to the conclusion that professional football is a mockery of a game. As a Liverpool fan, I was delighted with the result of the game at the Stadium of Light but as a football fan I would generally prefer to see the best sides winning. With this in mind, I propose a minor change in the rules of professional football. I think that we should lobby FIFA to rid football of goals. At the end of many a game, the best team on the day has failed to get what they rightly deserve just because they have failed to score, which is blatantly unfair. What we should do is replace the “goals system” with a system similar to the one on TV’s Ready, Steady, Cook! programme. If one section of the crowd was replaced by a section of neutral fans, this wouldn’t be too hard to implement. Simply issue them with cards depicting a footballing equivalent of “Green Peppers” and “Red Tomatoes” (meat pies and cold cups of tea, for example) and get the ref to ask them at the end of the game which team they would prefer to win. OK, so Man Utd wouldn’t fare too well as most neutrals enjoy watching them lose, but no system is without its flaws and would this be a bad thing anyway? FIFA has always strived to find a way of ensuring fair play and the best teams winning but up to now have only come up with rubbish like two referees. I think my system may be just what they are looking for.
Phil Griffiths, via email
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