Here are three innovative ideas that will make the beautiful game, European football, better — Letter to Sons

7 min readJul 16, 2025

It is time for another special edition blog. Similar to the last one, I will be talking about the game of football, aka soccer. In this post, I will share and describe three innovative ideas I’ve come up with that I think will make the game better for all of us.

Hardcore football fans, be warned — this may make you mad.

I believe many football fans will appreciate my ideas and may even agree with some of them. However, I will give a warning to what I would describe as old school fans. That means that you like the game the way it used to be played, and you don’t want to change anything. If that’s you, you’re probably not going to like this blog.

I am a lifelong football fan

Some of you are probably wondering, “Why should I care about the opinion of this stupid American. He’s probably some Ted Lasso watching, Ryan Reynolds Wrexham kind of fan.” That’s not me. Football is my favorite sport. I played the game growing up. My dad coached, and both my sons played. I go to matches. Below, you see a picture of my son and me at a Southampton game last season. That’s how committed I am as a football fan. I went to a Southampton game from the States, even though they finished bottom of the table. In case you’re wondering how I ended up as a Southampton fan, check out the last blog I posted. In it, I explained how I pick a new Premier League team every year to support. Yes — that is correct. I change my team every year.

Five things I love about football

Let me start on a positive note by sharing five things I love about the game of football.

Matches tend to last less than two hours. Some other sports go longer, and I tend to get bored.
It is the world’s most popular sport. Watch the madness that happens every four years for the World Cup. American fans are in for a treat next year.
Football fans are passionate. If you don’t believe me, go to a match outside the US and you will learn how passionate fans are.
There are some great rivalries in football, like Man City versus Manchester United, and El Clásico.
Teams have to perform to stay in the league. Your team can be promoted up, and worse, your team can be relegated out, so if you have an awful year, you are not staying in the league.

Several problems that I see with modern-day football

When I think about the modern game of football, there are several problems I see. For this blog, I’ve narrowed my list to the top three.

There are not enough goals.
There’s some confusion about the rules, and offside is maddening these days.
There are too many tie games. What’s worse than sitting through a match and it ends zero-zero?

Solution #1 — more goals

Let’s talk about how you solve the problem of not enough goals. Solution number one is to add more penalty kicks to the game. Anybody familiar with the sport knows the easiest way to score a goal is from the penalty kick spot.

Here is how to implement solution #1

If the game gets to halftime and it’s zero to zero, then you allow each team to take one penalty kick. Let’s face it, the fans have already sat through an entire half with no goals. Give them a chance to at least watch a penalty kick. I bet it will keep people in their seats all the way through the end of the first half.

Solution #2 — clear up the offside rule

The offside rule is confusing for me, and I’ve played the game and watched a ton of it. If you’re a new fan, it’s hard to wrap your head around this rule. I will not go into all the nuances about the rule. Instead, I will generally describe how it works. When you are played the ball on offense there are supposed to be two players from the opposing team between you and the goal. Generally, one of those opposing players is the goalie. The reason this rule was created was to prevent cherrypickers from hanging up by the goal, waiting for a pass, and then kind of slam dunking it into the back of the net. The challenge nowadays is that many goals are nullified because offside is called after the play is complete. Players are confused, managers are mad, and fans are reluctant to celebrate, which is not good for the game.

Automated offside tools have added to the confusion

Many football leagues have tried to tackle the problem using automation. I believe this has only added to the confusion. Technologies like what you see in the screenshot below are used to determine if the offensive player is in front of the defensive player. Take a look. In this case, the call is offside because the arm of the offensive player is in front of the defensive player. Think about that for a second. In football, you can’t even use your arms to play the ball, yet it’s a body part that can make you offside. That is nonsense to me. What’s happening is that players aren’t sure if they should celebrate after they score. Neither are the fans. The referee must go to check the screen and make a determination, slowing down the game. There’s got to be a better solution than having your arm or your toe make you offside.

Use a common point of reference for offside

Before you start thinking I’m some old fart that’s anti-automation and that computers are dangerous. I’m not. I work in high-tech for goodness' sake. What I think needs to change is that there needs to be a common point of reference for the player when comparing the positions. For example, you could use the badge's location on the jersey. Put a chip there or somewhere in the shorts along the waistline where the belly button is, one point for each player. That is all you would compare, not body part by body part.

Solution #3 — no more tied football games

It is time to show my American bias. There are too many tie games. The solution is simple. No more tie games. I will quote from the great philosopher, Ted Lasso, who said, “Ties and no playoffs. Why do you even do this?” I think he’s on to something here. If two teams play, you should know who won at the end of the game.

No football match should end with no goals scored

How do you implement a solution to eliminate tie games? If the game ends in a tie, you go straight to a shootout. I enjoy a football shootout. They are super exciting. Now, some of you are probably thinking, “What about extra time?” It is probably not practical because so many games end in ties. Just go straight to the shootout instead. It’ll add excitement to the game, and fans can get into watching their team score at least a few goals during the shootout. Most importantly, everyone will know who won at the end.

A few more details about shootouts to determine the winner

Some of you are probably convinced I’ve lost my mind. Let me add a few more details, hopefully proving otherwise. If you win a tie game via a shootout, you do not get three points; you get two points. If you lose the shootout, you would still get one point. I think this point system would help add excitement to many leagues. Also, the goal scored during the shootout would not count towards statistics.

Three more problems in football that need solutions

Hopefully, you like the three innovative ideas I came up with. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of problems with the current game. Here are three I do not have great solutions for.

There are too many games. Players are getting injured way too often because of all the games.
Another rule that causes a lot of confusion is handball, especially in the penalty box.
Too many players are wasting time, whether it’s corner. Refs need to do something.