Barcelona icon Gerard Pique suggests football bans draws like basketball and baseball
Spain and Barcelona legend Gerard Pique has voiced his frustration with football's current rules and wants the game to adapt in order to keep younger audiences engaged
Gerard Pique has unveiled his controversial vision for the future of football.
The Barcelona legend, 37, has not been shy in critiquing the state of the game since hanging up his boots. After retiring in 2022, the Catalan set up a seven-a-side tournament named the Kings League, which he hopes will eventually rival the beautiful game itself in popularity.
Pique’s Kings League is streamed on Twitch as he looks to appeal to younger audiences with six 40-minute games on each matchday, with quirky rules such as unlimited substitutions, sin bins and a gold card. Now the World Cup-winning defender has gone one step further by saying he would like to see draw results banished completely from football.
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When asked which rule football should change, the Spain icon revealed he prefers the win or lose model used in American sports such as basketball and baseball. Draws are predominantly used to decide matches in league formats and the first-leg of tournament fixtures in football, while penalties, extra-time and golden goal are used as alternatives to find a clear winner.
He told The Times: “You need to find ways to score more goals or that you cannot end a game as a draw. Maybe there are no draws, why not? In baseball and basketball there are no draws. You go to a game and it ends with a draw and the feeling is, ‘Who won?’
“Football is afraid of change. It has a huge history, it is very traditional, but change will happen, it has to happen. A 90-minute game that can finish 0-0 is difficult to understand for the new generation.”
Pique, whose grandfather was a former vice-president of FC Barcelona, risked the wrath of millions of match-going fans across the world by suggesting the comfort of watching sports at home beats the live experience. He claimed that football needs to, and will, eventually adapt.
He said: “There will be a point when you wear these glasses and it will be the same as being there in the stadium except you will be able to say, ‘Now I want to sit next to Xavi, now I want to watch it from behind the goal.’
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“There will be a point where clubs will be paying fans to go to the stadium because the experience at home in your pyjamas, with your biscuits on your sofa, is even better than going to the stadium. We are not so far from it.
“You need to understand where football is going, where entertainment is going, and mix them, so people are still attached to football.”