Good Games and Penalty Shoot-outs

This paper considers the concept of a good game in terms of its relation to the fair testing of relevant skills and their aesthetic values. As such, it will consider what makes football ‘the beautiful game’ and what part penalty shoot-outs play, or should play, within it. It begins by outlining and refuting Kretchmar’s proposal that games which end following the elapsing of a set amount of time (t-games), such as football, are structurally, morally and aesthetically inferior to games which end following the attainment of a designated goal (e-games). Instead, it is suggested that the structural deficits of t-games are compensated by the fact that they allow for a fuller test of more valuable open skills than the closed skills that tend to define e-games, such as golf. Moreover, it is the rationing of time in t-games that provides an added aesthetic value that does not occur in e-games. Finally, it is concluded that although it may appear that the existence of the penalty shoot-out supports Kretchmar’s argument by changing football to an e-game, penalty shoot-outs have limited aesthetic value because they are not a full test of the skills inherent to the game itself, and therefore should be replaced by alternative means in determining the outcome