Saturday Night

I was just watching India vs Australia and then suddenly the website that was illegally broadcasting the live feed shutdown without any warning. Damn!

So I am going to forget all about it and write about important stuff, such as Indian politics and European football leagues and fraternities and world history. Mainly world history.

Why should I care about Bush and Iraq and what the historical significance of Bush in Iraq is? Why should I waste my valuable time reading Khalidi's 300 page rant against Bush and neo-conservative ideas and America and what-not. All I really want to do, is watch football (and porn) 24 hours a day.

I have been reminded by a friend that I have to do history because its a requirement, so lets leave that alone. How about European football? What needs to change? Well, firstly, a European Super League needs to be created.

It should have only 16 teams so that there is no fixture pile-up and all of that. Then comes the issues of qualification for the tournament. Make it similar to the champions league qualification, so that the tournament will look something like this:
Max. 2 guarenteed from England, Italy, Spain
Max. 1 guarenteed from France, Germany, Holland, Portugal
6 remaining places up for grabs every year
One country can have a maximum of 5 clubs in qualification and final tournament.

Then, what about relegation ? Only the top 4 teams in the league should be allowed to stay, and the last 4 should be relegated, and the rest of the 8 should go into the qualification system, along with teams that have done well in their national leagues in the previous year. This way, smaller teams also get a chance to play in the big-money European league and no monopoly will exist. Let me give an example:

Results of European League
1. Milan
2. Man U
3. Lyon
4. Chelsea
5. Real Madrid
5. Barcelona
7. Inter Milan
8. Arsenal
9. Bayern Munich
10. Ajax
11. Porto
12. PSV
13. Roma
14. Galatasaray
15. Celtic
16. Villareal

So, Milan, Man U, Lyon and Chelsea qualify automatically.
Roma, Galatasaray, Celtic and Villareal go back to their respective leagues.

Teams 5 - 12 go into the qualification.
Lets see that scenario develop for different countries:

England - 2 auto teams already qualified (Man U, Chelsea), 1 already in qualification (Arsenal), so 2 more - thus the top two teams get through (say Liverpool and Tottenham) to qualification

Italy - 1 auto team (Milan) , 1 already in qualification (Inter), Roma are out, 3 top teams from the league come in (say Lazio, Juve and Sampdoria)

Spain - 0 auto teams, 2 already in qualification (Real, Barca), Villareal out, 3 top teams from the league come in (say Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla)

France - 1 auto team, 0 in qualification, 3 top teams from league (say Marseille, PSG, Monaco)

and this goes on until a qualification pool is set up for the 12 empty spaces. So, this is a very fair method giving all teams a relatively fair chance of getting into the league.

In my opinion, a European Super League is inevitable because people only want to see the best teams play each other.

I really hope it happens, until then I will continue to wait for the website to come back up so that I can follow cricket...