I say introduce ‘World Cups’ for the clubs, instead of the one that runs in December disrupting the league, once again. Introduce the tournament with more teams.
Or even just create a summer cup for clubs within the British Isles. I think that would be a better idea than the current internationals, and even the World Club Cup..

The only Unified calender Idea that will work is having all the major European leagues, having the same number of teams, starting and ending at the same time, and a mandatory winter break from early January to mid February. That break could be set aside for Internationals and tournaments like Nations Cups without affecting the domestic calendar. Furthermore meaningless trophies like League Cups and Carling Cups should be scrapped all together from domestic calendars leaving only the league and local FA CUP’s as the paths to Europe.

And FYI. The African Nations Cup, Asian Cup and COPA America can’t be played at the same time as the European Cup. It’s obvious first off that the European cup will over shadow both tournaments. Secondly in Africa the summer months of Europe are at the time of the heaviest rains in Africa. When football is next to unplayable. Also people in Europe tend to forget Africa sides are trying to becoming as good as the European ands South American counterparts. Playing a major international football tournament amongst themselves once every four years will not cut the mustard

Why not do the same with domestic and international football. By having an uninterrupted season you could finish seaon earlier without the distraction of international football even playing midweek games if needed. Then setting aside a month or two at the end of the season (may and june) to play tournaments or qualifiers which will also give players time to have a break before the start of the next season.

Friendlies seem to be a waste of time, more of a hindrance than a benefit. They’re meant to be practice matches so the national team can get time playing together however the teams rarely play well, never put in 100% and it ends up being an experimentation of players in different formations and positions than their used to. With an international season there is no need to keep having practice matches during the season.

I totally agree with the argument about the small nations. In fact, I’d go one step further: organize a separate tournament for them. Let them join on a volunteer basis, and limit participation to those countries whose FIFA rankings are below a certain cutoff (say 125 and below, to give an example); you could also put in place other limits such as population.

But by having a “2nd division” of International football you could make several parties happy. FIFA, which is only interested in making money, would now have double the amount of tournaments, and while it wouldn’t be double the income it would be a significant increase. The smaller countries would receive a lot more exposure and actually have the chance of winning something. The larger (or read: better) countries would not have to waste time and resources on meaningless qualifiers against teams ranked 100 places or more below them.

Back to unifying the calendar: Tournaments should all be played at the same time of the year. I honestly dont care when, but at the same time. It is absurd to have Copa America in odd-numbered years, every two years, it is absurd to have the ANC in February. Just to name two examples. Whether FIFA or the rest of the world likes it or not, UEFA and European Club football are the economic motors of the sport, and should be the primary consideration when making this calendar. There should be a designated time for vacations as well. Players, especially those at the top level, now play a ridiculous amount of matches. Robinho, to name an example, will probably play (between club matches, copa america, and friendlies) 65 or 70 matches in the 2007 calendar year. He is young and can handle it, older players (not old, just “older”) already try to get out of playing many kinds of matches in order to rest. I realize they are millionaires, but the body and the mind have their limits. Let there be a 2 or 3 week period every year when there is absolutely NO football. I think it would be good to avoid saturation, for players and fans.

And qualifiers should be played all together. Not interspersed. Let there be, say, over the 18 month period that is required for qualifiers, 3 or 4 months entirely dedicated to them (example, for the 2010 world cup, set aside: Nov 2008, June 2009, and Nov 2009 as qualification months) this way, teams will gel much better, the quality of football will increase, and there will be fewer issues regarding players traveling around the globe and missing club matches.

Finally, friendlies: more or less, do away with them, with the exception of one or two at the beginning of the aforementioned qualifier months.