Five-point plan

What would you do if you were in charge of FIFA?

What would you do if you were head of FIFA, football's world governing body? Good question, isn't it? Recently, I have been pondering on what changes I would like to make to the game and I have come up five solid ones. Let me know what you think in your mailbag reactions.

1. Implementation of five substitutions per game

With the constant increase of matches every season, clubs and national sides should be able to use their resources more often. I think it is ridiculous to see teams finish a game with 10 players because an injury happened when they had already made three substitutions.

In my mind there are various plusses to having five substitutions: It can liven up the pace of the game by having 10 fresh players out there on the pitch in the second half; it puts more pressure on the starting XI because they know that if they fail to deliver the goods, they can easily be replaced; managers would have more chances to take risks on substitutions and maybe even give some younger players a chance; and it would actually take management overall to another level since coaches would be able to have more of an impact on the game.

There would be one stipulation to this new rule. Teams could only make three changes while the game is going or while the clock is ticking. What does this mean? The other two subs would have to come on at half time. The reason for this is that we wouldn't want to have managers wasting time by making substitutions just to make them, or watch the game stop 10 times, would we?

2. Two referees instead of one.

I come from Portugal, where every weekend referees are blamed for making an obscene amount of mistakes. And I know for a fact that in many other countries they are constantly abused for the alledged errors they commit on the pitch. Just this past summer, Italy and Spain complained about the standard of refereeing at the World Cup. A possible solution? Have two referees, one on each half of the pitch. It may not solve all the problems, but it would help having the official closer to the ball at all times. He would have less kilometers to run and more access to judge every foul from a better angle.

3. Eliminate group phase from all club competitions

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The health of the players must be protected and I believe there are too many matches being played. By getting rid of the group phase in the UEFA Champions League, Africa's Champions League and South America's Libertadores Cup, football players would have more time to recuperate between games. The European Cup always had a special "cup" atmosphere to it when I was growing up, but I don't feel that at the moment.

Of course money is a big reason for having so many matches. But average attendance at these club competitions seems to have dropped over the past seasons because there are many games that don't matter. Have a home and away tie in every round and bring back the excitement, while increasing the level of play.

4. Less qualifiers for national teams

Did you know that South American countries played 18 world cup qualifiers? That is obnoxious. Even in Europe and Africa, national teams play too many matches. My solution: have the weaker teams eliminate each other before bringing in the powers of the region. Who wants to see Spain thrash San Marino, or France pound Andorra? Venezuela, Chile and Bolivia never had a prayer of qualifying from Latin America. Have more preliminary rounds and eliminate some of these smaller nations. This way you have countries playing 6-8 qualifying matches. The end result again would be beneficial for the players and it would increase the quality of football played across the globe.

5. Performance-based salaries

It is sad to see the rich getting richer and the poor disappearing from the face of the earth. If every team had a salary cap with a base contract for every member, there could be more money to share among the smaller teams. I don't want to see second, third, fourth division clubs disappear, honestly. But this will happen if there is not some kind of revenue-sharing restructure taking place some time soon. It would be great seeing players earn their money and seeing them paid for what they do. There could be bonuses for goals, assists, tackles, saves. That way the best players would make the most money, anyway.

These are five changes I would like to make to the game of football if I had a say about it. I realize these ideas would have to be polished in order to be implemented.

Pedro Pinto is an anchor for World Sport, the international sports show that airs on CNN International.

 

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