Chris Rattue: Blatter's blather over shootouts is wrong way to go

There are many unwise ways in which to break footballing deadlocks and chief among them right now might be leaving the solution to Sepp Blatter, soccer's head honcho.

Penalty shootouts are the topic of the moment, having sprung to the top of Fifa's hit list after Blatter claimed the method by which Italy beat France in this year's World Cup final was a tragedy.

So Fifa's president is ready to send shootouts whistling over the bar and is now searching for a wonder goal - a fair and fascinating way of separating sides who are level after extra time in sudden death matches.

Good luck Sepp, but suggesting a replay in the event of the final ending in a draw isn't a great way to kick off the search.

Most of us, all of us, would agree with Blatter on one level. Penalty shootouts are tinged with unfairness and are hardly foolproof. For one, they almost guarantee that England never progress and that Germany do. But that is not Germany's fault. It is England's.

But Blatter's argument that it is wrong to decide a team game on solo skill struggles for credibility in a sport where this is often the norm in normal time anyway. There's nothing wrong with that.

While the universal game has so many other problems, major problems, it is a little comical to witness the head administrator taking a long run up at what is often the most enthralling part of major tournaments.

What else might Blatter spend his time more profitably trying to fix? What else, for public consumption, should Fifa be seen as targeting as true blights on the game?

Try corruption. Try security at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Try racism. Try diving, or "manipulation" as it has come to be known. Try teams who just sit on a lead. Try ticket prices for the ordinary Joe.

Try, it might be suggested, the game itself.

The last World Cup was, you could argue, saved by the penalty shootout rather than tarnished by it.

A core problem for soccer is that players with incredible net worth can't find the net. Look at Chelsea right now, the almost untouchable champions of English football, who are bankrolled by a man with pockets as deep as his old oil wells. Chelsea can't even score goals at a rate of two a game. Football needs more flair, more goals, more sense of park-football joy.

Think back to the last World Cup. After a promising group stage, it became mired in tactics and, for that level of the game, insufficient skill at the most exciting end of the field.

The final stages weren't bereft of goals. But the tournament lost its sparkle in many ways, for the ordinary Joe at least, although the aficionado was probably still fascinated. We need more of Cristiano Ronaldo, more of Wayne Rooney (although not the one struggling at Manchester United for now), more Ryan Giggs ...

Soccer - thanks largely to the extraordinary repeat deals between Sky and the English premiership - has become mass entertainment loaded with drama, yet it still doesn't have enough genuine entertainers on the pitch.

How does football solve that problem? You won't find any answers here, sad to confess, but Mr Blatter's office could quite easily turn its energies that way, instead of picking on the penalties.

And check out a television set near you when there is a penalty shootout in the offing. People with little and no interest in the game swarm from all corners to witness the drama - raw triumph and tragedy. It's a sporting soap opera just made for TV.

What are the alternatives? Text messaging? Maybe the fans could get a vote, a la TV shows. A colleague has just suggested banning goalkeepers.

Which is about as sensible as Blatter's suggestion that players could be removed during extra time golden goal periods so that, say, an eight-a-side game might decide the outcome.

It could still end as a draw and surely this system would be as unfair on players as the shootout, even more so. It would also run players - and presumably the best players - ragged, thus rendering them less effective in the next game.

As for cup final replays, they could go on forever. They are also nightmares to organise and even the little old Super 14 couldn't manage it when faced with a foggy final in Christchurch.

Replays also tend to fall flat, with energy expended on the first occasion. The World Cup final should be decided, somehow, on the big day.

Maybe the major fault with the shootouts is that they can encourage teams to close up shop and rely on their ability from the spot. But years of searching for a better alternative has been fruitless.

The penalty shootout demands precious skill under duress. Fantastic.

Instead of mounting a doomed search for perfection, Blatter should thrill at the spine-tingling drama. The shootout is the best tie-breaker now, and probably for ever more.