Football is worried. Falling attendances, bankrupt clubs, the Premier League decided by Christmas, too much defensive play, Cricket is more exciting. Silly suggestions such as widening the goals, scrapping the offside law etc abound.

I offer a radical thought. Why award points for a win or a draw? The object of the game is to score goals and to prevent the opposition scoring goals so why not base league position solely on goal difference – and if goal difference is equal then on most goals scored?

I see three benefits to this: -

Championship/Promotion/relegation issues would not be decided until the last kick of the last game of the season – there would always be the possibility of one last 10 – 0 scoreline.

The tactic of scoring an early goal and then closing the game down would disappear – at present a 1-0 win is just as good as 5-0 – not so in the future.

Attacking football would become the only way to play – it would be better to win 5-3 than 1-0.

Applying this system to the Premier league last season would have given Manchester United -16 goals behind Chelsea halfway through the season - more chance of catching that up over the remaining 24 games than 10 points I think?

One final question – who invented the points system in the first place and why? Has there ever been a league decided on goal difference alone?

By RamsTrust member Geoff Wheeler http://www.ramstrust.org/