Plausible Conspiracy Theory No. 1

Here's a plausible conspiracy theory for you (I doubt very much that it is true, but what if it is ...) ...

Just suppose the the Champions League was all fixed!

• Lets say that the majority of people who watch the matches do so via satellite television (either at home or in the pub). 
• The satellite broadcasters provide UEFA with a fair amount of the money to fund the competition.
• The broadcasters wish to maximise their viewing figures to gain the maximum advertising revenue.
• They therefore conspire together make sure all the clubs with either a reletively small fan base or with a large fan base in a relatively poor country go out in the group stages, regardless of how well they play or how good their players are.
• In order to ensure that all the broadcasters maximise their viewing figures for the final, the quarter-finals onwards are manipulated so that not too many teams from a single country get through, and that each broadcaster gets to choose the winner in rotation too keep their viewers comming back.If they hadn't Barca would have won for the last 2 or 3 years (& Man or Chealsea for the 3 years before that).

As I said, this is almost certainly not true, but if you tell your mates in the pub after a few pints ....