Soccer is broken. Not the kicking-of-the-ball-can’t-use-your-hands part; that’s beautiful, always has been. Ok, maybe not always; early versions of soccer were brutal and ugly, an expression of pent-up male anxiety in a culture that that frowned upon self-expression, masturbation, etc. Um, where was I?

Oh yeah, the sport of soccer is as healthy as ever, but the professional infrastructure around it feels like it could fall apart at any moment. How might we fix it? That’s the subject of my latest ESPN column:

“In many ways," Chaudhuri said, "European football doesn't quite know what it wants to be."

Does it want to be a global product with top-to-bottom competitiveness that competes with the NFL and NBA? Does it want to remain the local, unifying cultural object that it initially represented? Does it want to maximize revenues? Does it want to support a 100,000-plus-large workforce? Does it want to promote superstars? Does it want to be fair? Does it want to favor the biggest clubs?

The problem is that the answer to all of those questions is "yes."

Have great weekends, all.