The most handsome team should win.

The running from half way bit was done by the Americans in a previous incarnation of their ‘league’. I would favour normal extra time then golden goal with 3 players being removed (leaving 7 if you started with Joey Barton) if its still all-square.

Points decision like boxing. Ref decides. Would end the swearing at the ref as well (mostly).

If the teams can’t decide it in that time, its time to hand over to the fans.

The team captain gets to wander around the stands and pick 11 of their opponents fans to complete another 30 minutes. This could go one of two ways

1. Those blokes with their tops off at Newcastle games. First picked! Result: comedy weeble football, with the ever-present danger of some Muamba style shenanigans at any moment. Though probably with less favourable outcomes

2. The polar opposite. We go for looks. The team captain picks the most photogenically beautiful/scantily clad/well endowed females. These won’t be hard to find. The cameramen normally find them within 30 seconds of kick off. One proviso. They have to play in whatever footwear they turned up in

I don’t think the Opta option is fair though, it only really favours the ‘better’ side, thus doesn’t take into account the circumstances of the final itself. Example – 1st div team gets to a final, acknowledges it will be outplayed and sets itself up to play on the counter-attack, its only real option. After full time its 0-0 and they lose on shots on target, possession etc. Surely the ‘better’ team should have beat them in normal time if they were good enough.

Yeah very good point.

How about the team with the least tabloid column inches in the previous month wins? Double points for being caught having ‘relations’ with gopping old prostitutes.

Something involving a tiger?

The big cat should be hungry and on an 17yard chain from the goal line. Keeper in chainmail. Back four to play with their shorts round their knees and their buttocks painted in antelope blood?
Golden goal. Must be scored within the 18yd box.

Only for extra time, obviously.

For Blatter : Anytime you draw with an English team the opponent wins

For Real : Whats wrong with a competition being drawn?

BRITISH BULLDOGS !

Thats if anyones old enough to remember it !

Each manager get a blowpipe with 10 tranquilizer darts. At the end of full time each manager can use the darts on the opponents at the rate of 1 per 5 mins. That way you add additional skill and tactical nous.

Each team gets in a crcle and plays headers, first to drop the ball loses.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ‘vogon poetry’ endurance challenge between 2 captains, except with Cantona reading his stuff instead of the vogon. (I LOVE Cantona btw 😀 )

Golden goal but with gradually telescoping/expanding goal mouths: by 10 minutes the goal is twice as big/wide and you can have a realistic crack at it from the centre circle 😆 There would also have to be some comedy musical accompaniment to expansion of the goal mouths, like in the ice hockey.

Wet a strip of grass at the centre circle, 2 players take a run-up and have a ‘longest skid on knees’ contest.

Or do it the FIFA way. Each manager (allegedly) provides an unmarked brown envelope to the Governing Body: The one with the ‘nicest’ content wins!

Just introduce a rule that gives each team five subs. If any player is so injured that they can’t get up after a 30seconds boxing style count then they’re off. The only exception to this is if the offending player is booked or sent off.

Diving is a instant red and a penalty to the other side.

If it would be a free kick outside the box, then give a penalty for the equivalent inside the box

I’d bet very few games would be a draw.

I like something along the lines of the ice hockey idea. Thing is though that hockey goalies save an awful lot more of the shots on goal than I think a football goalie manages. With the North American love of statistics I can tell you that a hockey goalie will have a save % of something close to 90% or better for open play. In the one-on-one situation a player is doing well to score 40% of the time.

I think two suggestions already made are better though:
No goalie or taken men off the pitch.

Understand though the pressure to have match finish by x to allow for planning purposes. Again in the NHL Play-offs it is sudden death overtime for as long as it lasts which makes for some long games sometimes.

Footballers love to roll around on the ground like the have been shot by a sniper if a member of the opposite team should look at them in a funny way. So why not have a real sniper shoot random players at 5 minute intervals during extra time until such time as a goal is scored. 😈

Right, being creative are we? Ok so you put two men in goal, and the opposition get an unlimited supply of balls and get 20 seconds to score as many as they can, with all the players shooting continuously. Most balls in the net wins of course.

Actually. This is the answer.

I don’t really see what’s wrong with penalties. Life, in itself, isn’t fair so it teaches the world a lesson when they happen. Thank you.