Penalty shoot-outs

Apologies for radio silence. I haven't been outraged by anything much recently.

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The Football league is reportedly "considering" the introduction of shoot-outs to decide drawn games.

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Naturally, everyone the article spoke to is dead-set against it. However, I personally don't think the idea is entirely without merit. The argument I can see in its favour is that England are generally awful at penalties - I suspect Scotland and others would also be awful at penalties if we weren't so awful at football that we never get to the stages where they happen. If the pressure of a shoot-out was routine - I think it's something like 30% of games are drawn - players would be better-equipped to cope with them in World Cups and the like.

That said, giving a team a bonus point for winning a shoot-out would devalue a win 'in regulation' (sorry, I live in the US and have seen much more ice hockey than footy this year). In hockey, a shoot-out win is worth 2 points, just like a normal one, and you get a point just for getting to overtime.

I'm a little averse to meddling with the points system again, but it might be interesting to award teams involved in a draw no points, unless they were to win the penalty shoot-out*. The idea would be to make it less attractive to play for a draw.

Ah, listen to me, I'm getting all Blattery and proposing nonsensical rule changes for the sake of it. What do you think?

* Because I'm a geek, I might have a look at how that would affect league standings.