How European Football Can Solve America’s Problems

The World Cup starts tomorrow and I can tell you that I am riding high with soccer fever. I probably have a temperature of 200 degrees. I can’t wait for the games to start. I have been researching teams and players, and I have been scouting out locations to watch the early morning games here in the U.S.

It really baffles me how the whole world is soccer crazy, but the majority of America couldn’t give a crap. So as I was taste testing some beers I want to drink as my official World Cup beer, an idea spawned on me. Europeans are f—ing brilliant. Well maybe not, but I just realized that the way they organize their soccer leagues is actually really brilliant: promotion and relegation.

The idea of promotion and relegation is, if you continue to win, your team is promoted and you face better competition and make more money. Well, if you suck and continue to lose, you get relegated to lower leagues and risk diminishing your profits. It is a great performance concept that generates enhanced competition, unless you really enjoy sucking. If that is the case, I hear guys like Ben Roethlisberger, Tiger Woods, and John Terry are hiring.

So where can the Americans apply this promotion and relegation concept that is employed by the rest of the world? Everywhere and anywhere the latest bad parent is complaining their child prodigy does not get enough attention, or where the latest team owner, like the Glazer family, is driving their team into the ground.

Let’s start with the education system. I know not everyone enjoys the No Child Left Behind, because most parents don’t want their advanced child prodigy stuck waiting for the next Mike Tyson to catch up to everyone else. They want their child challenged so they can be the next brainiac living the high life, like Stephen Hawkins. So I propose the education system implements promotion and regulation.

If your kid tests smart, they get put in an advanced class. If they are dumb, well, they get relegated with the rest of the Oakland Raiders. Retest kids every quarter so they can either continue to advance, or fall back. This creates competition in the classroom that does not exist. For the parents that don’t want their child left behind, TOO BAD! Americans are getting dumber and dumber as we choose not to challenge children anymore.

Another place promotion and relegation can help is in politics. Whether you are a politician, an activist, or one of those loud mouthed parents with a stupid idea, you should be put to a test. Based on your score, you will either be promoted to a higher level, or relegated in status. How does this work? Well, if you prove your intelligence and have productive views that can be presented in a constructive way, you deserve a chance to speak. For all of those idiots out there, like those who want the American flag banned from schools or who continue to seek bailouts for big oil companies and failing banks, you get relegated to keeping your mouth shut.

This is getting fun, who is next? Well before this gets too long, let’s poke at American sports. What is the problem with them? For one, Americans don’t appreciate and love the game of soccer enough. So those who hate the sport are automatically docked points and relegated in their status. But for real, American sports seem to lack a consistent, high-level of competition league-wide in all of our professional leagues. Scratch that, we lack consistent competition at any level of sports – high school, college, professional.

At the high school level they preach fairness and base competition levels by the size of a school, yet it doesn’t matter because everyone makes the playoffs. At the college level, this whole give everyone a chance thing is catching on as there are more football bowl games and more teams in the basketball tourney than one could humanly care to ever watch without going stupid and ending up like Lawrence Phillips. At the professional level you have so many bottom feeding teams whose owners rake in profit sharing checks, drive their teams into the ground, and use it as sort of a tax write-off.

None of these are good for American sports. We need to enhance the level of competition. If your team sucks more than Monica Lewinsky, or you have the competitive drive of cable TV repair man, you deserve to be relegated to a level of play that better suits you. If you worry about fairness or loss of profits, then you can get your team’s ass in gear and get competitive. Then you can get promoted and reap the benefits. All fairness does is breed dullness and discourage taking things to new heights.

Watch the World Cup and see what competition is. See the heartbreak of a team that is upset and can’t get out of group play. These players play with heart and a desire to be champions. If Americans followed that mentality then competition would be enhances in all aspects of our lives.