By expanding the tournament to include as many as four teams from the strongest nations and by introducing a group stage that guaranteeseach competing club at least six matches, European soccer officials have created a self-perpetuating system that plays to the strengths of historical powers.
Unlike jointly underwritten Eurobonds, the national guarantees backing the EFSF puts each state on the line for only a share of it, broadly in line with its weight in the euro-area economy.
The rest should be made to publish clear accounts: with all the cross-subsidies and loan guarantees that chaebol subsidiaries give each other, it is impossible to tell which is bankrupt and which is merely wobbly.
German savings banks and mutual banks are used to the idea of mutualised guarantees: they have formed joint-liability groupings, which vouch for the solvency of each bank in their group.