No Pyro No Party

Pyrotechnics seem to be making a return to English football stadiums. Whether it be flares, smoke bombs or fire crackers, fans across the country and across the football league are setting these devices off at the match. Liverpool fans in particular have led the way with this trend, sparking debate amongst supporters and media alike whether this is right or wrong.

Liverpool at Fulham

As a Liverpool supporter, I have noticed this debate become particularly prevalent after the reds trip to Fulham at the weekend, as the pyrotechnic trend seemed to reach it's peak. I watched the match on the internet (yes, I wasn't there unfortunately) I thought the displays from our fans looked great, and added to the fun end of season atmosphere. However, as I was watching the co-commentator (I can't remember who it was) criticised the supporters for their behaviour, labeling it as dangerous. I have since seen Liverpool fans agreeing with this around the internet, causing a divide in the support.

I believe the issue with pyrotechnics comes from a problem in modern football and the way modern football fans are being manufactured. If you watch a European match on English television, with some of the biggest teams in Europe, you will nearly always see some sort of pyro at the games. If you take, for example, the two Champions League semi finals from a few weeks ago, both teams who are no finalists, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, set off smoke bombs, fire crackers and flares regularly at their home games. When this happens the English commentators praise them for it and say how great it looks and how good the fans are. Why should it be different for English teams? If the media in this country believes pyrotechnics are dangerous in football stadiums, are they basically saying it's okay for them because their foreign? Because that's not right is it.

Pyromaniacs in Dortmund

A lot is often said, and particularly in recent weeks with German teams doing so well in Europe, about how good it is for fans of German teams, and how the clubs are run properly and care about the fans. Likewise, the fans are often praised for their behaviour. It wouldn't fit the script to criticise supporters for their dangers pyrotechnic displays. On the contrary, modern football has raised an attitude and a breed of football fan in this country totally different to what they have in Germany. The Sky Generation as they are known. These fans are middle class, and want go the game and stay seated for 90 minutes and enjoy the show, just like they are going to the theatre. In the majority of cases, it is this type of supporter that is not happy about Liverpool fans and their smoke bombs. It goes against the Super Sunday script.

Now, I know it's not quite as black and white as that. There may well be a safety issue when it comes to pyrotechnics, it probably won't be a nice experience for a young kid trying to enjoy a football match to get caught in a load of red smoke. However, this is where football in England and countries like Germany is different. In Germany, they allow the fans who want to take part in this behaviour to have their own section of the ground to do this in. The same goes for standing at football, which is another issue that throws up questions about safety. In Germany, if the fans want to stand they can choose to go in the standing section. The fact they have the choice is very important. In this country, the powers that be try to make everyone conform to their way of thinking. Pay your money, sit in your seat, stay quiet, and don't make any sudden movements.

Football in England is like a dictatorship, football clubs are a law to themselves when it comes to controlling the fans, they try to blanket ban everything rather than try to work out resolutions to suit everyone. When smoke bombs started getting popular, Liverpool issued this statement to supporters:

The answer to everything is ban them. Again, it's the same with standing at the game. If people are standing in the Kop the stewards go to them and tell them they'll get kicked out. Now, it is unfair if you standing up effects someone's view who wants to sit down, the same way it's unfair that someone should have to be around pyrotechnics if they don't want to be. But again, people should be given the choice. Liverpool have had a problem for years, whereby they have sold the Kop to tourists on the atmosphere, so the tourists buy their Kop ticket and there's no atmosphere, because all the regular fans are being replaced by tourists like themselves who don't sing. Similarly, a tourist will want to be in the Kop then they will be unhappy if they can't sit down and watch the game in peace. But anyway, that's just a bit of a side note that kind of leads on to my next point...

The reason other European countries such as Germany allow their fans to stand up, and set off flares and take part in other behaviours such as this that are outlawed in England, is because they know that these fans are the loyalest and most hardcore group of supporters. These fans, who are sometimes referred to as Ultras, but have different names in different countries, may act in such a way that does not always make the club look great to outsiders, but they will always be there. Football goes in cycles. At the moment Germany is a major European footballing power, so the stadiums are always full, but it hasn't always been that way. Around 20 years ago even the biggest teams in the counrty weren't attracting fans. You'd often see the likes of Bayern Munich's Olympic Stadium almost completely empty. But the ultras section was always full and bouncing. The same applies to the likes and Italy and Spain who have also gone through bad patches. Without these hardcore groups of supporters, many clubs wouldn't be here anymore as they would have gone bankrupt. But the hardcore supporters were always there, buying their tickets, and just about keeping the clubs afloat. The clubs haven't forgotten this, so even now when they're going through good times, they still aim to keep the hardcore supporters happy because they know it might not last forever and they'll need these supporters to stay loyal in the future.

England has been a major European power in football for the past 15 years or so now, and has used this to try and get rid of the old fashioned hardcore football fan rather than keep them. Football clubs believe that by replacing the traditional working class fans who have followed the teams for years, with new middle class fans, they will be able to make more money from it. The Liverpool fans who are letting off the smoke bombs at the games are the hardcore supporters. They're the ones who are going to every game, whether the club are doing good or terrible. The club has no issue giving these fans banning orders, as they know they can sell their tickets for more money to the middle and upper class fans, or even to corporate sponsors. But what the club has to ask themselves is will those fans and those sponsors be there in the bad times. And I'm not just talking about bad times for the individual club, I mean for football in this country in general. It can happen, it's happened in major countries in Europe only recently, the biggest clubs in the world have had empty stadiums game after game. The Sky Sports supporter might complain about the dangers of the smoke bomb, but he's probably watching the game on the telly anyway.

I have gone off on a bit of a rant from the original subject of this blog, but I'd just like to conclude by saying that it is important for clubs to allow fans some breathing space in regards to how they behave at the match. Not all fans are the same, some want to stand up, some want to sit down, some want to show their support by letting off a smoke bomb, some think smoke bombs are dangerous. However, the people who do want to stand and set off smoke bombs, the ones you try to ban, may just be the fans who will still be there when you need them the most.

One Internet Journey...

When I woke up this morning, I'd completely forgotten that last night I made a purchase on the internet.

What happened was, I was sitting on the internet bored for a few hours, and what tends to happen in situations like this is that I just go from one site to the next, and I find myself being taken to a totally different place from where I started. 

This happens quite a lot, sometimes I might just be going from video to video on youtube via the related videos. This tactic has lead me to seeing some crazy stuff, I'll start off by innocently looking at a short clip of a goal or something, and I end up finding myself at the opposite end of the internet staring at a video of a supposed mythical creature being caught on tape or something.

Next thing I know it's 3am and this fellas judging me

On other occasions I'll visit one of the many sites I use to just pass the time. I think the correct term is procrastination (ironically, writing this blog could be described as that as well). I've built up a fair collection of sites I use to do this over the years, there's the aptly named killsometime.com, there's break.com, my current favourite tickld.com, and others such as failblog, worldstar and liveleak. The other thing I do a lot on the internet is just search for stuff. I'll see things mentioned somewhere and I'll find out all about them. This sometimes leads to other epic quests across wikipedia clicking on links on a page and just continuing.

Anyway, it was sort of a combination of these two past times that lead me to the forgotten purchase last night. The website of choice last night was Failblog, and after getting to about page 12, I came across this picture:

It's basically a diagram of how you're effected when you have a hangover, and a cure for each part of this. So I went on a little googling spree, I was trying to find out what opioids were, what foods contained B vitamins and what rosiglitazone is, the plan being that I could crack the hangover secret and prepare a little recovery pack for the next day (recovery wank is still my number one tip though). But when I saw the oxygen one, I was a bit puzzled. Oxygen is already in the air, so how do you get more oxygen when you're hungover? Naturally, I went to google: "oxygen hangover". And to my surprise oxygen as a hangover cure is a well known thing, and of course people have made products for this.

To cut a long story short, last night I bought an oxygen tank. A fucking oxygen tank.

Bearing in mind I bought this in the middle of the night, but I don't know what possessed me to do it. So today, I woke up and I'd completely forgotten about this, then a bit later on the thought popped into my head and I was like I must have dreamt that. So I check my Amazon account and there it is. I bought a fucking oxygen tank.

I don't really know what I'm going to use it for, I'll give it a try on a hangover and see if it does do anything. What I'm probably going to do is when I get it I'll give it a little blast and do a blog reviewing my findings from the test, cos I'm sure everyone will be dead interested to know. Anyway, that was just a little blog about something really of no interest to no one about my life. Thanks for reading.

"It's oxygen, not steroids, I promise"

@adamheath

Internet Job Websites and Scam Jobs

First of all, I wouldn't say I'm actively seeking a job at the moment, in case anyone from my work is reading this. Just every now and then I like to have a little look on the internet job sites and apply for a few vacancies that look half decent. I usually go for the ones that offer lots of money and I know I have no chance of getting, just because I'm one of those people who thinks somehow one day I'll will just have a good job that pays well without having to do any work to get it. Apparently that's something to do with being a Pisces.

Anyway, recently I joined the website Monster because I'd heard of a few people getting decent jobs from there, and then I saw an advert on the telly for the site that's actually just called Jobsite, so I joined that. On a side note about that advert, even though it sort of worked because I went and joined the site, I don't think the fella on it is the best person for an advert. You know, the "new job phobia" guy? He looks like a sex offender, and it takes one to know one. That was a joke... maybe.

sex offender?

Anyway, one of the main reasons I only look for jobs on the internet every now and then is because of the amount of crap jobs that the websites throw up. I think it's to do with the agencies they use, but they bring up a load of these jobs that I like to call "jarg jobs", in other words, they're scams. I know about these jobs because I was unfortunate enough to fall for it a few years back when I was out of work after quitting university. There was no monetary loss on my part, I just lost a day out of my life and to be honest I felt a bit stupid for it at the end.

Basically what happens is the job is advertised on these sites under a company name to make them seem legitimate and professional, there was one I was looking at the other week called 'Red Planet Marketing', and there's a few being advertised at the moment called 'Encore Interactive Ltd'. Then they advertise the job in such a way were they don't say what the job is, but they make it sound like it's a brilliant career move that will make you successful and rich. Here's an example from Jobsite.co.uk of these type of jobs coming up on a search, when I searched using my postcode:

Now as you can see them first three jobs are all with the same company, offer the same money, and have the same job description, yet they have different job titles. The are two more jobs lower down the page that can't be seen on that screenshot, that are the same again, but have the job titles "Customer Sales Advisor" and "Graduate Trainee". Can you see the different ways they are trying to draw people in, and also how they are trying to have their vacancy appear in as many job searches as possible. As you can probably tell, each one of them jobs is the same, just marketed differently. The company are quite clearly desperate to get people to join them, and the reason for that is because they are a form of pyramid scheme. If you were to apply for any one of them vacancies now, just as an experiment, I would guarantee you'll get a call back or some form of response in the next few days.

Before going any further I think it would be best to explain exactly what the job is. My 18 year old self, clearly more naive than my present self, and after just dropping out of uni and being desperate for work, fell for one of these job advertisements. I was called a few days after applying, and invited to an "appointment" the next day. I think they call it an appointment because it's not an interview, but they don't want to reveal to you what it actually is. In fact, even when you get there they try and conceal from you what the job is until the last possible moment. That is because the job you've applied for is door to door sales. Walking the streets all day, knocking on doors, and trying to sell things to people. Not what you expect after reading the advert. 

So I go to an office building in Liverpool, all suited up to meet the boss, along with quite a few other people. The office is another disguise for the true business, one receptionist and a fella who is the boss. The Pharaoh, as he would be known in the pyramid scheme. Anyway, long story short, I spoke to this boss who told me how he was earning £80k a year, how he had a business plan, all these business terms he used to entice people in, then I went out with someone who who already worked for them, and he told me about his business plan, and how he hoped to be up to that £80k mark one day, how he'd have groups of people working for him (probably expecting me to be one of them), and all this. Then after all that talk you're knocking on people's doors trying to get them to switch to Virgin Media.

So, the way the pyramid scheme works is that, quite simply, someone sits at the top and has people working for them, who in turn have people working for them, and so on. The idea being that everyone in the pyramid makes a payment to the person above them, or they get a cut. So the aim is to get higher up the pyramid to get a bigger cut. The description of this sort of scheme, as provided by Wikipedia, is: "a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sales of products or services to the public." Can you see how this fits in with these jobs? The key part of that is probably the "non-sustainable" bit. To go into further detail about how these types of employers try to draw you in, we can go back to Wikipedia which says: "A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula which is used for profit." 

The thing with the pyramid scheme is that in some cases it is actually illegal, and that is because it is basically a scam. A few people at the top may make a small amount of money off it, but it's impossible for everyone to make money. The people at the bottom almost always have to be at a loss. So if you go to one of these job's and they feed you the stories of how much money you can make, first of all it's only so they can make money off you, and secondly you might only be intended by them to be the person at the bottom who does in fact lose out.

So lets now have a look at one of these job descriptions on the internet, and see how this all fits in, and also how you can spot them when browsing vacancies:

The main thing to notice is that you never get an actual job description. You get all the language that describes how amazing the job is, but they never actually tells you what the job is. Straight away you should be suspicious of that. This "specialist marketing team in our respected Liverpool city centre office" sounds great doesn't it, but it is in fact a group of door to door sales people who work for one man and his receptionist in a one roomed office in Dale Street. They don't tell you that "the opportunity to represent international clients throughout Liverpool and Merseyside" means you will just be travelling all over the city and knocking on people's doors trying to get them to sign up to broadband. 

They love their jargon and business terms that they try to use to sucker people in, "increasing our client's base by meeting with customer's face to face", and what exactly are their "b2b"'s and their "b2c"'s. The event based campaigns they mention, well that's when you see someone standing in Asda with a Talk Talk stand trying to get people to sign up. "Representing some of the largest names in the Home Energy, Telecommunications and Security Industries." Notice these are all areas that involve people signing up to things. That's how they make money off people, by getting them to sign things. They're not at people's doors flogging a physical product, they make their commission with a signature on a direct debit form and the companies involved deal with the consequences later when someone sees it on their bank statement and doesn't know what's happening. Or they just hope the person doesn't notice, or doesn't want to go through the hassle of cancelling. The problem is the only people who usually do sign up to the stuff are the old and vulnerable who let the sales people into their house because they're lonely and fancy a chat and end up signing their life savings away.

Now I don't mean to offend anyone who works for a company like this doing a job like this if you're reading this blog. By all means put me right. In fact, I'm sure someone will have something to say about this, because in my research for this I came across a number of occasions were people were questioning or criticising this type of job on internet forums (usually student websites actually) and there would always be a comment stating how this job is great and how they're earning £350-£450 a week. However, the fact that these comments from different users followed pretty much the same script were a bit of a giveaway to the fact they weren't normal people.  

You see the people who do this door to door job, sometimes on the train travelling to their latest victims area, or if you're unlucky you'll have them knocking at your door. They wear their smart suits and believe in their business plans. But the problem is they've just bought into a lie that was sold to them by a fella in an office who thinks he's Alan Sugar, but really he's more like David Brent. They're cold calling at people's houses, which is often illegal, and they're part of a pyramid scheme, which is also often illegal, and they think they're some sort of entrepreneurs.

I don't know, maybe there is something good about this type of job, but when I see them on the internet I stay well clear.

@adamheath 

Brendan Rodgers, Rafael Benitez and Liverpool fans

Brendan Rodgers is manager of Liverpool Football Club. Rafael Benitez is not. However, if you were to listen to quite a few Liverpool supporters you would think it was the opposite.

There is no denying that Liverpool have declined somewhat over the past few years. It's not been as great a decline as some media outlets might have you believe, we've gone from finishing second three and a half seasons ago to playing in the Europa League and being current League Cup holders. With this slight demise, and also the increase in social networking, the voices of our fans who hark back to the days when we did come second are louder than ever.

I have no problem with people remembering the times we had under Rafael Benitez, but I think now, especially with him being Chelsea manager, things are going a little too far. A lot of our fans seem to be defending him all the time, and when he gets abused by the Chelsea fans they treat it as them abusing our manager and not their own. He's not our manager, and people need to let it go, it's getting embarrassing.

Another thing that annoys me is that, when Rafa was our manager, I found myself arguing his side all the time. He had nothing like unanimous support from our fans, I'd say it was a lot closer to 50/50. I remember hearing all the time that "winning the European cup just papered over the cracks", you don't hear anyone say that any more do you.  "He doesn't take the Premier League seriously", remember that? And even in the season that we did finish second, a good portion of our fans were not happy with the manager, blaming his defensive play, inability to beat the smaller teams, and even his rant about Manchester United for us not winning the league.

Rafa papering over the cracks

The problem is, Liverpool fans have this tendency to grasp onto something nostalgically and believe it's return will make everything better. We've done it for years. Ever since Michael Owen left there's been a large section of our support who have wanted to bring him back, with a false hope that for some reason playing for Liverpool will prevent him being injured for entire seasons. We burdened Robbie Fowler and Kenny Dalglish with the roles of saviours. Since Fernando Torres left he's been terrible, even in his last season for us he wasn't great, but for some reason we think just by being back at Liverpool he'll return to the player he was in 08/09. And now the same nostalgia is present with Benitez.

Don't get me wrong, a return of Torres and indeed Benitez could bring about a change of fortunes for the club and see us miraculously catapult back to the pinnacle of European football, but is there any point in lingering onto this false bit of hope? We're turning into a group of supporters based on if's and but's, if Benitez had stayed, if Torres had stayed, if Alonso had stayed, if it hadn't been for Hicks and Gillett... Sounds a lot like a criticism we make about another set of supporters, doesn't it? Well the truth is a lot of our own supporters are just as bad if not worse these days.

A lot of these same supporters who are constantly calling for a return to Benitez, are the same supporters who refuse to give Brendan Rodgers a chance. The reason I decided to write this blog was because a photograph has surfaced of Rodgers wearing a tshirt that has The Sun newspaper on the front of it. Many Liverpool fans straight away vilified him, which is what lead me to claim on twitter that they are "embarrassing". Fans of Liverpool football club who will publicly slate our own manager whilst they continue to show unwavering support for the manager of Chelsea. Makes sense doesn't it.

Brendan Rodgers wearing a "The Sun" tshirt

Now I hate The Sun, I understand why no one connected with Liverpool football should have anything to do with the rag, but it's better to try and get the full story before making a verbal tirade against your own manager. The photo was taken in June 2011 after Brendan returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Part of a team led by Chris Kamara, the climb aimed to raise £500,000 help provide free nursing care for people in their own homes. So what's Rodgers supposed to do when he gets the call off Kamara, "hey Brendan it's Chris Kamara, will you climb Kilimanjaro with me to raise money for a charity that provides free nursing for people in their own homes." "Sure Chris, who's taking part?" "A load of ex footballers, oh and it's sponsored by The Sun." "Did you say The Sun are sponsoring it Chris? Well fuck the people who need nursing care in their own homes as they can't leave the house and can't afford private care, I'm having no part in this."

I'm not even going to use the argument that he wasn't the Liverpool manager at this time, because the response to that is that he should have morally known not to be involved with The Sun. However, how can you question a man's morals when he climbs one of the world's toughest mountains in aid of charity? When you look at the moral credentials of the manager of Liverpool, is it not more important to see that he did this charity work than the fact he wore a tshirt once? Brendan Rodgers did not make The Sun newspaper any money, and nor did he make any money himself off them. Lets not forget our own captain has made a fair bit of money in the past off exclusives for The Sun's sister paper, The News Of The World. But people are a lot quicker to forgive when it comes to the captain.

Liverpool fans seem to be in a strange place these days. I don't know whether it is to do with the current standing of the team, or whether it is just more noticeable with the increased platforms to air their views such as twitter and facebook. If we have a bad game, they're saying how poor of a manager Brendan Rodgers is, if we have a good game and get a good win he's a great manager. If Stewart Downing or Jordan Henderson have a bad game they're terrible wastes of money who need to be sold, if they have a good game we hear that they might come good. You can't back the winner after the race is over, you have to be behind it from the start. This is what is happening with Rafael Benitez now, because we haven't been back to the position we were in when he was manager, so it's easier for people to back him than it was then. But at the time I can guarantee that a lot of the same supporters did not like him.

I'm no Paul Tomkins, I'm not PR for the club, I accept that when the team are poor you can have a go at the players and the manager. I won't try and tell you that Downing did in fact make three passes with his right foot that all had 100% completion rate, which shows he is in fact a very versatile player. Criticise poor performances by all means, but keep to a certain level. If you're going to go all out on a player or manager, if you say they're never going to be good enough for the red shirt, don't then turn around and claim you backed them all along if they come good.

And for the record, I myself am completely behind Brendan Rodgers and I think Jordan Henderson is a great player, but Stewart Downing is a terrible waste of money and needs to be sold (you can hold me to them statements).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick rant and it's given a few people something to think about.

@adamheath 

The Best Club In The World...

With Manchester United vs Liverpool this weekend, there seems to be a lot of talk about who is the biggest team in England. On twitter earlier I was discussing this idea, what makes a big team and what arguments are invalid when measuring the size of a club. During this mini rant I had I went on to compare clubs across Europe as well as clubs around the world. This isn't an argument I'm going to go into here. I don't like talking about "who is the biggest club", I think it's a bit of a stupid argument for people to have because, like I said, the arguments presented are often invalid.

However, I do think there should be a way in football to determine the best football club in the world. At the moment we have the European Champions League, arguably the biggest club football competition in the world. The 'arguably' part of that is something I feel is long overdue to be taken away. Not by saying for definite that the Champions League is the best club football competition, but by creating a new competition that would determine the best football team in the world.

Chelsea win the 2012 Champions League

The most vocal opposition to the idea of the Champions League being the greatest club football competition in the world would no doubt come from South America. In South America they have their own continental club football competition equivalent to the Champions League, and that's the Copa Libertadores. However, in Europe you wouldn't find many people who know the last winners of the Copa Libertadores, the most regular winners, and indeed who the best teams in South America are.

Corinthians win the 2012 Copa Libertadores

Currently there is a competition held every year in Tokyo, the FIFA Club World Cup, that takes the winners of six continental club competitions and puts them against each other. This usually does lead to a final involving the European Champions League holders and the South American Copa Libertadores holders. However, this tournament isn't held in high regard by football fans, and the winners generally aren't taken to be the best team in the world. Sometimes, a team like Barcelona, who many already believe to be the best team in the world, may win the competition, but they don't need this trophy to prove anything. When Barcelona played in the competition in 2011, had they lost the final I'm quite sure the majority of people in Europe would still consider them the greatest team in the world. This competition is more of a money making gimmick, and is not a suitable process for determining the greatest team in club football.

The FIFA Club World Cup.

You probably didn't even know

what it looks like

The South American teams that enter the Club World Cup do actually take the competition very seriously. This is because they want to go up against the best teams in Europe and prove their worth against them, and prove they're better than them. However, the teams from Europe rarely take the competition as seriously, and you can't really blame them as it interrupts their domestic season, and is also not really worth the effort for them to win a trophy that is not considered a major honour in Europe anyway.

My idea is that there should be a football tournament on the same scale as the current FIFA World Cup, but for club teams rather than internationals. A competition that would be held every four years, with the best teams from the six continents going against each other for one ultimate prize - to be named the best club football team in the world. I may be wrong, but I'm sure the popularity of this competition would be as equally high in Europe as it would be in South America and the rest of the world. A chance to see teams face each other who have never had the chance to go head to head before. Giving your team the chance to face teams you've only heard about, and never been able to watch on television regularly.

Of course, obvious problems arise when considering a competition such as this. The first question most people would ask would be how do teams qualify for it? Well, my idea (even though I'm sure people will find flaws in it straight away) would be to have a points system in the Champions League, Copa Libertadores and the other equivalent competitions, that ran over the four seasons prior to the Club World Cup. The finals of the tournament would apply the same format as the international World Cup, with 32 teams starting out in 8 groups. The amount of teams from each confederation that would qualify for the competition is debatable, however, my suggestion would be that 12 teams from Europe would qualify, 12 teams from South America, and 2 clubs each from the other 4 continents, making the total of 32 teams.

Qualification would work like this: you are awarded points for games in the Champions League or equivalent competition. But looking at the Champions League as an example, you would only be able to win points once you were in the group stage, and you also only get points for winning. The reason preliminary rounds don't count is because that would be awarding a team for their league position and not their performance in the actual competition. Also, points aren't awarded for draws simply because this would give teams a greater incentive to win, particularly in the group stages. But this would also apply to the knockout rounds, were the reward would come for getting through to the next round. 

So with that being said, the points system would work like this... A win in the group stages would be one point, a win in the first knockout round would be two points, a quarter final win is 3 points, a win in the semi final is 4 points, and for winning the final you'd earn 10 points. The reason there is such a large increase in points from the semis to the final is because the semi final has two legs, so there is an opportunity there to gain 8 points, and the final has to be worth more than the semi final. 

Qualification would take place over four years prior to the competition, with the last year for qualification being the season the finals take place. Therefore the actual Club World Cup would be up to date with who are the best teams at the time. The finals can not take place in the same year as a World Cup or European Championships, so they would have to take place a year before or after the World Cup. As we are currently in a year before the World Cup, I have made an example of who would have qualified for the tournament from Europe if it would have taken place in 2011, based on the points system mentioned above.

I've actually missed the 12th European team off, that would have been Porto who had 15 points. So I think from looking at this table you can see that the points system is fair, with all the Champions League winners making it to the finals.

Applying this system to the other competitions you would get a fair sample of teams from each continent to take part. The finals would start off with 8 groups. As there are more than 8 teams from Europe and South America there would have to be groups with clubs from the same continent in, but you would have the top European team in a group with the lowest South American team, and the rest of the continents are unseeded. So every group would involve a European team playing a South American team, and I think this would be of great interest to the world of football. 

I don't know whether many people feel the same way as me, but I personally enjoy club football a lot more than international football. I think if this competition was introduced it would get more interest than the international World Cup. If my team weren't playing in the competition I'd still watch it with great interest, the same way I do the Champions League or World Cup when my teams aren't in them.

Anyway this was just some thoughts I had I'm not sure many people will like the idea, I am sure that a lot of people will find flaws in the competition though, so let me know if you do. Thanks for reading 

@adamheath 

Internet Porn

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Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways

This is stepping away from the subject matter of my usual blogs, but I just felt like doing a little critique. I saw Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways on Sky Anytime today, and I decided to watch it. I don't know whether this is normal, but there's always been something about trains that interests me. I don't know why, maybe it's because I was a fan of Thomas The Tank Engine as a kid, but this interest I have is what made me decide to watch the show.

Anyway, from the opening of the show it looked like it might be quite interesting, Chris previews some of the adventures he will be going on and it looks like it will be quite entertaining. From his opening line, he says "I love travelling". Well I'd just like to get this out the way now - bullshit! If Chris loved travelling, he wouldn't have spent half the show moaning, but we'll hear more about Chris's moaning as this blog continues. Back to this episode, and after the interesting opening sequence showing some of the journeys Chris will be going on during the series, he comes out with the line "I aim to discover how these extreme railways are built, how they're kept running, and how they change the lives of the people they connect to the outside world." Thanks for that Chris, but this isn't your dissertation, we didn't really need to know that, I just want to see the choo choos mate.

In the first episode Chris is in the Republic of Congo in Africa, he sums up the journey he'll be taking today by basically saying it'll go through the jungle. He goes the station, and this is were the complaining starts. "This train is going to be absolutely heaving" says Chris after seeing all the people at the station. Well sorry you've traveled to one of the world's poorer countries, to film a tv show about extreme railways, and they haven't laid on a private train for you. Next, the train is late, and Chris isn't happy about this at all. Forget the hundreds of Congolese people who rely on this train, Chris Tarrant, on his jollies paid for by Channel 5, for a show called Extreme Railways, has to wait around a few hours for a train. Chris tells us no ones allowed on the platform, but then he's allowed out to see what he's going on, probably because he's white and has a tv crew with him.

So here's all the Congolese locals waiting for the train...

and here's Chris after he was allowed on the platform...

Hard life isn't it mate.

Chris's moaning gets even worse after that, he even gets the head of the Congolese railway network down so he can have a go at him. Here he is, looking like a bit of a gangster:

So the poor locals who use this train all the time deal with it, but the day Chris is traveling we must get the head of railways down. Sly. I mean, fair play if Chris wants to travel on Merseyrail and his train's late, by all means get the head of Merseyrail down and have a dig, but it's a bit sly to travel to a third world country (I'm guessing they're third world, sorry if they're not) and complaining that their rail network isn't up to scratch. I'm not arsed, I'd gladly get paid by Channel 5 to travel to The Congo and wait for trains. But this isn't the last of Chris's moaning, in fact we're only about 15 minutes into an hour long show. When the train eventually arrives Chris still isn't happy...

The train is heaving, as earlier predicted by Chris, but this is all part of the extreme railways experience is it not Chris? Naturally, so what does Chris do, sit with the locals and enjoy the culture...

Nope. He goes and stands at the front of the locomotive. Bellend. Fortunately, this decision is made more entertaining for the viewer when Chris gets absolutely soaked when the train goes through a tunnel. The tunnel provides more entertainment, as Chris retires to carriages with the riff raff because "he needs some kip" (more complaining), the train only goes and breaks down. This leads Chris to ask the question "does the fun ever start?" And again I go back to the fact he's making a programme called Extreme Railways. Literally the whole time the train is stuck Chris complains, it's so annoying, whilst the local people have a little sing song to pass the time. They quite clearly should've got someone else to present this show. Also, as a side note, the woman Chris is sitting next to on the train has pink eyebrows, but they never mention this or explain why, isn't that a bit weird? 

And also, as another side note, get on how mad this goat is, it proper just bails right in front of the train and lives to tell the tail:

Don't worry though, Chris is eventually rescued from this nightmare, and they reach the next station. We now get a quite a bit of informative content. Chris speaks to another head of the railway network who tells him about where they buy their locomotives from and how they're skint so they can't afford any good ones and also how all the track is ruined, and we also see the workshop where they fix the locomotives. Chris then finds a "new mate" as he describes him, who explains the signalling system they use. It was at this point where I discovered Samuel Eto'o works for the Congolese railway network...

There he is, in the bottom right hand corner. And that's not even me being racist, he's genuinely the spit of him. Nelson Mandela behind him is Chris's new mate Daniel, in case you were wondering. Interestingly, when Chris first meets Daniel, he says "you look so smart", in a rather patronising tone. That's racist. Daniel is good to Chris, he takes him on a trip down the original railway that has been closed for years on a maintenance train. It was built by the French in the 1920s when they occupied the country, and goes through the jungle. Isn't that exciting for train enthusiasts, going down an old railway line that no one has used for years through thick jungle. Of course, Chris complains. Seriously though, how fun does this look:

After spending the whole journey making mock cries for help, and talking to Daniel like he's a child (he speaks French Chris, he's not thick) we get a bit more education from Chris about the history of the railway. After this Chris decides to continue his journey, but for some reason now Daniel is going with him. Anyway, they'll now be travelling on one of Congo's new trains, the Gazelle. "The Gazelle is a luxury passenger service boasting all mod-cons" Chris tells us, and he's ecstatic when he sees they have a bar on board:

Well sorry Chris, but if that's what you wanted from this journey you should have stayed at home and took a Virgin. Anyway, the Gazelle will be taking Chris on the rest of his journey, so he's a bit happier. He even states "if this really is the future of the Congo ocean railway, I like it." Well I'm happy to hear that Chris, and I'm sure the people of Congo are. I'm sure you'll be back, using your own money to pay for the trip, to travel on the Gazelle again. 

Chris is now at the end of his journey, but he tells us there's one more famous sight he still wants to see. This sight being the famous rapids of the great Congo river. However, he can't resist another moan on his way to see it, as he tells us how he was "squeezed into a dugout canoe". Looks like hell Chris...

The show ends with Chris sitting on the rocks at the side of the rapids, he's "always wanted to come here" apparently. He ends by talking about his trip a lot more positively, even though he's just spent the whole show moaning about it. If the railway hadn't been built it "would have been a great shame" for him. Hmmm...

In conclusion, I can't understand why Chris Tarrant made this programme if all he does right the way through is moan. If they would have got someone more positive, who got really involved with the trip, it would have been a lot better.

here's a link to the show if anyone wanted to watch it http://youtu.be/fxHv77QKjGs

@adamheath