PART THREE
THE COMPETITIONS
Our third set of changes revolves around footballing competitions. Some of these competitions have been around for decades; take for instance the F.A. Cup, in England — it officially began in 1871! The following proposals are designed to reduce or streamline all the various types of footballing competitions that are, in my opinion, damaging the game of football today.
For purposes of simplifying this section, we will use England’s Chelsea Football Club and Fernando Torres as the recurring examples. If Chelsea have a perfect season, they could be eligible to play in the following competitions:
- The Barclays English Premier League
- The Football Association Challenge Cup (or F.A. Cup)
- The Football Association Community Shield
- The Football League Cup (or Carling Cup)
- The Europa League
- The European Champions League
- The European Super Cup
- The Intercontinental Cup
As a Spanish international player, Fernando Torres could also participate in either of the following competitions (depending on year of competition):
- The European Championship (or Euro)
- The World Cup
The following are my recommendations for the only competitions that should be held:
CLUB COMPETITIONS:
11 – The Domestic League
The domestic league is the main club competition. It would continue to be held in each country, but my recommendation is to reduce the number of teams competing in the various divisions of the domestic league.
For example, there are 20 teams in the current edition of the English Premier League. My recommendation is to reduce that number to 16 teams, thus reducing the number of matches in the league by eight per season.
Not only does this alleviate the issue of player fatigue, but by reducing the number of teams, one could argue that the quality of the remaining teams would increase. One could also argue that with less matches, the quality of the play would also increase due to reduced player fatigue.
Less teams per division means potentially more divisions (or skill levels, if you will), and thus, more competition within each division, all the way down to the amateur level.
12 – The Domestic Cup
Most countries have a football association knock-out (or cup) competition in addition to a league knock-out (cup) competition. Why have two similar competitions? Which is more important? Which gives its winner the most bragging rights? I say eliminate the league cup altogether. Typically, this cup is reserved for a team’s… reserves, anyway. We’ve already addressed the issue of substitute and reserve play in Part Two.
A cup competition is important, however. Unlike the league, which typically rewards the best and most consistent teams in the land, the cup competition is a knock-out tournament; the nature of it dictates that on any given day, any one team can upset a major squad on the pitch. This makes the cup competition almost as important as the domestic league, especially for the smaller or lower-division clubs.
The domestic super cup is typically a one or two-match contest between the winner of the domestic league from the prior season, and the winner of the domestic cup from the prior season. It is usually considered the first match of the season, and since it only involves two teams, I believe it should be continued.
13 – The Champions League
Currently, the top teams of each nation can qualify to participate in one of two main continental-wide club competitions. In Europe, for instance, these are called the European Champions League, and the Europa League.
The first is the upper echelon of teams – typically the champions from each country plus one or more top finishers, depending on the country’s coefficient (a measurement of a league’s competitiveness – the better your league, the more teams that can qualify).
The Europa league is a second, lower-tier competition that is reserved for the lower-class leagues in the continent, plus some of the better teams which did not qualify for the Champions league, or were perhaps knocked out of the Champions League in the early stages of that competition.
My suggestion is to eliminate the Europa league altogether. Instead, increase the number of clubs that participate in the Champions League and turn it into an actual league! Basically, we should have four or eight groups of sixteen clubs each, each containing teams from the full spectrum of caliber – from small country champions, to large country top teams and champions as well.
After one round of play, where each team plays every one of their league opponents, the top four clubs would advance to a knock-out stage similar to today’s competition.
This approach not only rewards consistent teams, but also allows lower-tiered teams to face potential powerhouses at least once! That means more ticket sales, merchandising income, etc. Win-win. The number of additional matches in this new continental league would be offset by the fewer number of matches in domestic play, which in total would still be fewer than in the current structure.
NATIONAL TEAM COMPETITIONS
14 – The Continental League
Every four years, national teams across the world play qualifying matches for their continental championship. In Europe, this is called the European Championship, or Euro. The competition is made up of several small leagues of five to seven teams, and the winners (and runners-up) qualify for the finals to determine the continental champion. These tournaments alternate every two years with the World Cup (more on that below).
My suggestion is to simplify the process and improve the quality of the football in the final tournaments. Instead of having several small “leagues” which qualify for a finals tournament, I suggest several divisions based on team quality. The top 16 teams would be in division one, the next best 16 teams in division two, and so on and so forth. Similar to domestic leagues, the bottom 3 or 4 teams from each division would be relegated to a lower division, in exchange for that division’s top 3 or 4 teams. This ensures that we, the fans, don’t have to suffer through qualifying matches with 11-0 results (a recent example of this was just last week, where the Netherlands defeated San Marino by just such a margin!)
This also eliminates the need for a finals competition after league play. The champion is determined by the first division’s winner – its prize won by skill and consistency over the course of the last two years of competing against the best teams in the continent.
Now that’s fair!
15 – The World Cup
The World Cup format cannot be changed. It works, the viewership loves it, and frankly, it is grossly engaging. However, my suggestion is a simple one. Instead of going through the painful qualification process (very similar to the continental championships described in 14, above), I suggest we pick the top tier teams in every continent’s first division! We can start with a large number of clubs (say 64), and the qualifying would entail knocking that down to 32 teams.
The finals format would be exactly the same as the current World Cup finals. But a significantly less number of matches would be played, and the quality of the World Cup finals would improve drastically. The reason the last few tournaments have been so boring to watch is because the lower-level teams know they cannot compete with the Germanys and Brazils of the world. As such, they play a strictly defensive game, in the hopes the opponent will make a mistake. I like to call this “parking the bus”.
32 strong teams go all out, all the time. Bring back the beautiful game, people!
And so it begins…
Proceed to Part Four – The Administration
Go back to Part Two – The Regulations
SERIES GUIDE:
Part One – The Rules
Part Two – The Regulations
Part Three – The Competitions
Part Four – The Administration
Part Five – The Finances