Saturday, October 9, 2010

What if football and Formula One were sports in the Commonwealth Games?

I know. You're wondering why I'm writing about Formula One and the Commonwealth Games in a blog dedicated to football and the BPL.

But what do you do when there's no football (except for boring qualifiers), qualification for the Japanese GP is postponed and every other channel on TV is broadcasting the Commonwealth Games? You come up with all sorts of ideas, most of which seem fun but extremely unlikely to ever come to fruition.

And so, in a bid to make the Commonwealth Games a little more exciting and interesting (who the hell wants to watch lawn bowling?) I would like to propose to the Commonwealth Games Federation the inclusion of football and Formula One for the next installation of the games in Glasgow in 2014.

For football, there shouldn't be any limits to the number of senior professionals that can feature in the games. This will certainly increase viewership and interest in the Commonwealth Games. And this way, the organisers of the games will be able to see some returns on the enormous investment that was allocated for the games.

Best of all, including football might even give England a chance at winning something. After all, there won't be any of those pesky European and South American nations to foil England's chances. Heck, Capello would have to go out of his way just to screw this one up.

Then there's Formula One, another sport that would give the games a solid adrenaline (and ratings) boost.

Again, advantage will go to England, seeing as to how they would be able to field two former world champions - Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button - represent them.

A close second would probably be Australia thanks to Mark Webber. Third place would probably be battled out by India (Karun Chandok and Narain Karthikeyen) and Malaysia (Fairuz Fauz and the retired Alex Yoong).

Speaking of retirees, Scotland could have a chance if they can manage to convince David Coulthard to come out of retirement and race for them.

As for the cars itself, the teams will have to use brands that represent their country. As such, Hamilton and Button will be able still be able to drive McLarens but Webber may have to settle for a Holden formula car (yikes!). I don't think I have to tell you which brands will be featured in the India vs Malaysia fight for third place (I'm not going to mention the Malaysian brand as it seems very touchy about the usage of its name these days).

But this rule could also give Canada a chance. The Canadian government is currently one of the shareholders at General Motors. Thus, they could utilise GM's capabilities to put out a decent car. As for race tracks, why not make things interesting by having street races instead of investing millions on a track?

Of course, none of this will ever occur. The BPL will put up a strong fight to prevent their season being interrupted by another distraction like the Commonwealth games while the cost of setting up Formula One teams for the games will eclipse the entire budget for the rest of the participating athletes.

Still, it's always fun to dream.

No comments:

Post a Comment