It's time to fix the Champions League or start a European mega-league

There's a strange kind of conceptual bloat that tends to infect international soccer competitions, which is fascinating because it so often works against the nature of the competitions themselves.

You start with a simple idea -- say, let's figure out the best club team in Europe. Only then you try to draw up the tournament and there's a lot of arguing; before you know it, you're trying to remember whether the sixth-rated confederation per UEFA coefficient receives one or two automatic byes to...