My tips to improve the World Cup

So we will have a new World Cup winner on Sunday night – Spain or Holland – probably the best two nations never to have lifted the trophy.
There have been some real surprises in South Africa – Germany’s amazing goalscoring performances, rank outsiders New Zealand remaining unbeaten and Uruguay reaching the semi-finals. England were rubbish (no surprise there though), Brazil imploded in shocking fashion against the Dutch and world champions Italy looked like a pub team.
The tournament was not a classic however and I believe FIFA has to make some changes to the game if we are to see an improvement in Brazil 2014. These are my tips for Sepp Blatter:
1 SCRAP PENALTY SHOOT-OUTS – it is not a fair way of deciding a crucial match. It is a lottery which examines the psychological make-up of a player rather than his skill. Instead the referee should count the number of corners each team wins and if that is level it should be down to the number of shots on target. We must reward the team which attacks more.
2 AWARD A GOAL IF A DEFENDER HANDLES THE BALL ON THE GOAL LINE – this would prevent any repetition of Uruguay profiting from stopping a certain winning goal with a hand ball on the line against Ghana. A penalty was given and the offending player red-carded but the spot kick was missed and Uruguay went on to win on penalties. Referees should give the goal and yellow card the offender.
3 RETROSPECTIVE YELLOW CARDS FOR PLAYERS WHO FEIGN INJURY – FIFA should examine video footage of matches afterwards and look for players collapsing to the ground as though they have been shot before miraculously getting to their feet and playing on seconds later. It is pathetic, cowardly behaviour and is a worse offence, in my mind, than diving to win a penalty.
4 AWARD AN EXTRA POINT IN THE GROUP STAGES FOR TEAMS WINNING BY MORE THAN ONE GOAL – this would punish ultra-defensive teams from strangling matches once they have taken the lead. It should lead to more attacking play and reward the more offensive nations.
5 USE GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY TO HELP REFEREES DECIDE IF A GOAL HAS BEEN SCORED – the old chestnut! There is no reason why FIFA should not set up cameras in the goal because it is almost impossible for referees and linesmen to clearly see if the ball is over the line. The argument that it would slow the game down is nonsense. The fourth official could have a small TV screen and signal to the referee seconds after it has happened. Millions of people around the world knew Frank Lampard had scored against Germany. The only people who didn’t were the officials. Fortunately Germany went on to score twice more to win 4-1 but if they hadn’t there would have been outrage.
So there you have it. My recipe for making the world’s greatest game even more enjoyable. I welcome your comments!