With J Hutcherson -- After last week's fun and games with a coach quitting and what I'll politely refer to as The Columbus Incident, maybe Major League Soccer lays off with the discipline. Let the Committee take a break, maybe watch some hockey or something.
Instead, it's Kansas City Wizards coach Curt Onalfo's turn to pay the fee for questioning the officiating. Imagine how much MLS could pile up for their official charity of choice if they could charge pundits and fans for talking about their match officials.
Onalfo played the role of good employee, blaming himself and letting it go - basically the bookend for the John Carver response. You either quit or move on, because otherwise you're just setting yourself up as a problem.
Should we even be asking if there's a point? Propping up the officiating has a long history across sports, and normally those very same officials have a way of making it worse on all involved. Most of us get that there has to be some protection from too much criticism of the officiating.
What MLS needs to ask itself and what we need to be asking MLS is simple. Will there ever be an instance when public criticism of a referee on the part of a coach or other representative of a club is warranted? If the answer is no, then all of us can move on.
It becomes another MLS category that, according to League policy, is none of our business. That also can cut both ways, but so far MLS doesn't pay that a lot of attention.
Moving on, yesterday gave us yet another look at what UEFA will be trying to get past when their Cup becomes the Europa League. What it won't answer is the National Invitational Tournament question from American college basketball. Outside of the fans of the teams involved, why would anyone be interested in seeing who will be crowned the best team not in the bigger tournament?
UEFA might be betting on quantity to answer that. Put together a tournament with 160 teams, and you get that combined support. The problem is most of that support is gone by the time the knockout stage rolls around. Does anybody stick with the current tournament after their club is eliminated?
A 48-team group stage gives a lot of guaranteed games, but at the same time it does nothing to answer the poor man's Champions League comparison. The end result will be the same. Later stages that draw partisan interest but will need a lot of luck to push past that.
Turning the European Cup into the Champions League saw to that years ago. Right now, the best the UEFA turned Europa can hope for is that the clubs pushing for the final have big followings. Otherwise, it's too hard to get past the obvious.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
