In a surprise move, UEFA President Michel Platini has announced plans to use cricket's Duckworth Lewis method to determine the Euro 2012 knockout stages. "We've had to face facts," said Platini, "There has been little drama in these Championships and with co-hosts Poland already eliminated, we need to make it more exciting or there are going to be more empty seats than at the Olympic Women's Football in London. Everyone knows the knockout stages tend to produce dour,cynical matches, often not even settled by a pointless half hour of extra time, followed by penalties, which the Germans win anyway."
Henri Fernandez, Head of Euro 2012, agreed the changes would enhance the competition. "This is an exciting development," he said, adding, "the Duckworth Lewis method will be modified to take into account yards wrongly gained in throw ins, total accumulated spitting distance achieved per team, individual hair length, average number of tattoos per team and the maximum images rights per team in dollars. From this the DL method will calculate a probability co-efficient that will yield a likely scoring time for one team. If that is exceeded, the opposing team will have the remaining time to gain additional illegal throw in yardage, spit more, grow their hair, acquire more tatoos and negotiate for increased image rights.
Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis were unavailable for comment.