England duly completed their expected slaughtering of San Marino demolishing the tiny nation to the tune of eight but really what was the point of this whole worthless exercise other than to pad statistics and give the Three Lions their biggest victory since 1993 when they demolished...San Marino.
As much as they try San Marino are not at the level to play international football, so why UEFA and FIFA insist on this farce is beyond me. The men in power must come to the realization that this is hindering the sport, not helping it.
A far more sensible solution would be for countries ranked say outside the top 100 to have their own qualifying process where they play other countries of equal strength. The winner of that particular round would then have earned the right to mix it up with the big boys.
The likes of Liechtenstein, Andorra, San Marino are never going be able to compete with Europe’s elite. The same can be said for the tiny nations that participate in CONCACAF, OCEANIA and CAF. The fact that these regions have to also indulge FIFA in this sham is a nonsense. The only region that can honestly say that they have a legitimate qualifying process is COMNEBOL which pits the 10 nations of South America together in something that actually resembles a true qualifying process.
For the World Cup, European Championships, for that matter any competition to be meaningful in any way there has to be some semblance of fairness. I’m not saying every team should have the chance to win but to lose almost every single time you step on the field makes a mockery of FIFA’s slogan, For the Game. For the World.