FIFA President Sepp Blatter has asked German great Franz Beckenbauer to find an alternative to the ‘tragedy’ of penalty shootouts.
He said: “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.
Beckenbauer, the former Bayern captain and president, heads FIFA’s Task Force Football 2014 panel which Blatter created in 2010 to improve football before the next World Cup in Brazil.
“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 legend 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 shoot-outs 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.
It can be recalled that Chelsea beat Bayern Munich in a shootout last weekend to win the Champions League after the German side had dominated a game that finished in a 1-1 draw after extra time.
