WEEKLY WHINE
Fixing the international football calendar would be a great accomplishment, right?
Well, that’s what we thought when we did just that. But no. Some overly critical people thought that it was meaningless if we did not also fix the calendar for domestic leagues. They also thought our answer, “Let the leagues set their own damn calendars”, did not get to the heart of the matter.
After some thought, we now agree with them. We now agree that the heart of the matter is that domestic leagues cannot be trusted to set their own calendars. Therefore, it falls to us to do it for them. So we now present the domestic portion of the GoobNet International Timetable and Schedule for Advancing World Football and Unifying Leagues.
Our solution depends upon the following things to make it work:
Preseason for each league begins in late July or early August. This is shortly after the conclusion of that year’s international tournaments: the Men’s World Cup, the continental championships, the Confederations Cup, or any regional tournaments. Players competing in those tournaments will therefore have less of an offseason. We encourage those players to go on sabbaticals or Vision Quests as needed.
The season begins in the middle of August and continues through early April. We have 30 matchdays, including 28 on weekends and two during the week. [Although we show all dates on Wednesdays or Saturdays in the calendar below, leagues need not use only those dates; they should feel free to schedule matches on Sundays instead of Saturdays, for instance.]
We also provide eight midweek dates for domestic cup matches. Each nation, of course, is free to use more than that. In England, for instance, the FA Cup has eight normal rounds but several preliminary rounds before that involving lower league clubs.
The continental tournaments, as we mentioned, are all held at the same time, immediately after the domestic season. As a result, they effectively become playoffs.
The seven weeks provide enough matchdays for a 128 team elimination tournament. However, that would be a crowded schedule, and so we are hoping that confederations will limit the number of participating teams accordingly. Here are our suggestions.
The new UEFA Champions League should be a league of champions, as it originally was. There are 54 member associations of UEFA, but Liechtenstein do not have a league. Thus, we have 53 league champions; adding the defending champion gives us a total field of 54 clubs. The champions of the ten highest ranked nations in the UEFA coefficients receive automatic byes to the round of 32, and the other 44 play off in the first round.
The new UEFA Europa League should revert to the name UEFA Cup, as it is returning to an elimination tournament. Two teams from each nation may enter: the second placed team in the league and the domestic cup winner. [Liechtenstein may enter its two cup finalists instead.] Including the defending champion, we have a total of 109 clubs, so 19 clubs get first round byes: the teams from the nine highest ranked nations, and the cup champion from the tenth ranked nation.
Currently, 38 clubs participate in the Copa Libertadores, including the team that won the previous year’s Copa Sudamericana. Twelve of them play off in the first round, and the remaining 26 receive byes into the round of 32.
The Copa Sudamericana is already played in a knockout format, so no changes are required.
The CAF club competitions should be arranged in a similar fashion to those in UEFA: 56 domestic champions plus the defending champion in the CAF Champions League; 56 domestic second placed teams, 56 cup winners, and the defending champion in the CAF Confederation Cup.
The AFC may continue to play three tournaments: the AFC Champions League for clubs from the first tier of nations, the AFC Cup for the second tier, and the AFC President’s Cup for the third tier. Of course, these must be converted to knockout tournaments.
However, we recommend converting to a format similar to those to be employed by UEFA and CAF: champions of the 47 member nations in the AFC Champions League, with cup winners and second placed teams in the AFC Cup.
The CONCACAF Champions League currently has 24 participants: 21 from North American and Central American nations and three from the Caribbean. The Caribbean participants are determined in the annual Caribbean Football Union Club Championship, which may be held in the first two weeks of the continental championship period.
After the Caribbean matches complete, the CONCACAF elimination tournament continues. CONCACAF Champions League participants are currently divided into three pots: under this system, the first round serieses would each be between a Pot B and Pot C team, whilst the Pot A teams receive byes into the round of 16.
The OFC Champions League is currently played with twelve teams: two from New Zealand and one from each other OFC member nation. We recommend having eight teams play off in the first round, with four byed teams joining the winners in the quarterfinals.
Below is how our proposed calendar would look for the 2014-6 seasons.
| CLUB DATES | |
| 01 | League date |
|---|---|
| 01 | Cup date |
| 01 | Continental tournament date |
| INTERNATIONAL DATES | |
| 01 | Friendly date |
| 01 | Qualifier date |
| 01 | Release period for international tournaments |
| 01 | International tournaments |
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