(Only) Six Ways to Improve World Cup

Following Bob’s question about how could the perfect competition become even better, and following Stacy Marie from Trinidad and Tobago’s blog, I’ll give my suggestions to improve the World Cup.

#6: We could start banning Nike from displaying its logo anywhere near our beautiful sport. If they still use children labor in third world countries with pathetic laws for workers, while the stock holders sleep on money bags, fomenting their greed like in a satanic profit cult, football fans should send them to hell. We can spare their creative team, since their commercials are the best around.

#5: Referees should start using a white spray to mark the foul spot and the barrier position, as it has been done here at Brazil for some time. It avoids that walking barrier problem.

#4: As I was saying to Stacy Marie, I would banish penalty kicks from the face of the Earth. I just hate it. Some will say, oh, but as a Brazilian you must remember the 1994 final against Italy or the 1998 game against Holland, but I don’t like when luck gets too involved with the outcome. Ok, the players can die or ruin their legs, that would be not cool, but the coaches would be allowed to replace as many players as he wants at any time. He could put back players that were replaced during the game! But for TV timing issues we could flip a coin or… well… go to the damn penalty kicks. But I would increase the overtime period applying the free substitution rule. Lets put the bench to work a little!

#3: A new form of punishing actors that value drama more than football, diving for no reason, pretending to have been shot on the face instead of receiving a ball in the knees, jumping like a ballerina doing funny faces, you know what I mean, right? Bob said something about a pink card that would work like the yellow one. Why not use a handball rule on this? Send the player off for 5 minutes! It’s an immediate action that would not only embarrass the player but harm his whole team. I’m sure nobody would want to play this shameful role. We can be creative on the color of this card, pink, blue, red with yellow dots, or it could even have Rivaldo’s picture there. In case the referees don’t see the theater at the time, the player should receive the punishment at the next game, after examination of TV images.

#2: I would mess with the ticket prices too. The way it is now lots of people just wouldn’t have access to the stadium. Is this against the laws of marketing? Naturally, but it can be done in the name of democracy. The big bucks should come from advertising, not from the normal people. The cheapest ticket to see Brazil vs. Croatia is 900 dollars. I think that’s crazy. Increase 1% of the advertising space prices and you could give tickets for free. The price should be the same football fans usually pay. Twice that value, at the most. I know that if we have a World Cup here in Brazil, I won’t spend 2400 reais in a bad seat for a first stage game. I like to believe that football is the game of the people, not of the rich people.

#1: My number one concern is about our player’s physical integrity. I think Fifa should revise the violence issue. Would it be fair one guy receive just a red card after removing another player from the competition? For extreme violent tackles the player should be punished severely. Not only the red card would take the aggressor out of that game, but he would not be allowed to play again until the injured player can play too. Or we could continue with the card fever and establish the black card: send the thug home. No more Cup for him!

I was going to write 10 reasons, but there are plenty of things I would not mess up with, so I give you only 6. I hate violence in football, but there is one thing I hate more, it is called CATIMBA. It’s a complex concept that I will explain in a future post, don’t worry.