WEEKLY WHINE

If you can't beat them...

Here's some amusing news. The defending champions in Finland's football league, HJK Helsinki, have bought out their crosstown rivals, FC Jokerit, and will turn them into a youth team. Once again we verify the old adage: If you can't beat them, let them buy you.

But there are many sporting rivalries around the world, and this sort of solution isn't really feasible in all cases. So what to do? The solution is obvious: unleash the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED] on a list of rivalries. Here's what happened when we did this.

LOS ANGELES: LAKERS V CLIPPERS

It should be clear which of these teams dominate Los Angeles. Championships? Nine since moving to LA for the Lakers, fourteen overall. For the Clippers... psh, right. Seven Lakers have won NBA Most Valuable Player awards, no Clippers. Lakers tickets are no cheaper than US$24; Clippers tickets start at US$10.

So we must clearly get rid of the Clippers. Why not have a real estate mogul who has no idea how to run a basketball team buy them and establish a reputation as a tightwad who has no desire to offer contracts large enough to ensure that quality players play there, whilst at the same time firing coaches regardless of whether they can actually turn the ragtag bunch of low rent players into playoff contenders.

Oh, wait. Tried that.

MILAN: INTER V AC

These teams share everything: black stripes, a few players, even a home. What's really irritating is that usually when they play one another, they're both wearing their home shirts, so it's black and red stripes against black and blue stripes. Makes your eyes hurt telling them apart.

There is, as usual, plenty of animosity between the Nerazzurri and the Rossoneri. A year ago they met in the UEFA Champions League semifinals, AC Milan winning on "away" goals before taking the whole bucket of white meat by beating another striped Italian side, Juventus, in the final. So, right now, it's AC Milan on top.

If AC buy out Inter Milan, perhaps we'd create ACI Milan. They'd wear black, red, and blue, and they'd have a stadium to themselves. Such names as Dida, Francesco Toldo, Cafú, Thomas Helveg, Andrei Shevchenko, Kily González, Rui Costa, and Álvaro Recoba would take the pitch, possibly creating a rival to Real Madrid. But then they'd just have to buy out Real as well. Sigh. Our work never stops.

NORTH CAROLINA: UNC V DUKE

Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski. Michael Jordan, Grant Hill. Rashad McCants, Chris Duhon. Smith Center, Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Actually, there are three well known schools in the Research Triangle area, NC State being the other. But in men's college basketball, at least, Duke and Carolina are the top of the heap. Seemingly everyone in the state of North Carolina wears one shade of blue or the other on the two occasions every year when the sides meet.

Recently, Duke have owned, winning thirteen of fifteen going into this weekend's matchup. So for the moment, at least, Carolina is the weaker side. So take away the Carolina blue; having both teams wear similar colours is just confusing. How about Carolina chartreuse?

GLASGOW: RANGERS V CELTIC

Perhaps one of the world's bitterest rivalries. To say that these teams hate one another wouldn't really be accurate; they work together all the time and have in recent years considered moving together to the English Premier League.

To say that these teams' fans hate one another wouldn't be all that accurate either. To them, it's not a rivalry. It's ideological warfare. The fact that they're easily the two best teams in Scotland and have been for some time is seemingly secondary to the religious issue. Rangers have long been identified as Protestant; Celtic have been identified as Catholic. Guess how those respective churches feel about one another.

So here's the solution. Let the wars rage in Glasgow for a fortnight, preferably one during which the teams themselves have all away games. Afterward, after the streets run with the green and blue blood of the respective groups of supporters, take care to photograph the different types of blood mixing together as they flow down the drainage grates. Submit it to a photography contest as a poignant illustration that no matter how much hatred Celtic and Rangers fans may feel for one another, in the end there's no keeping them apart.

And even if that doesn't put an end to the violence, at least there won't be so many of them.